The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton

by Jane Smiley

  "How about Thomas Newton?" I don’t know why I betrayed Thomas in this way, except that he was very much in my mind all the time, and it was a pleasure to say his name aloud.

  "Now, that’s downright dull, son. Say, though, what about ’Isaac Newton’? You heard of him, right? You put that on your piece, and folks’ll pay attention to it, even if they don’t know who he is or what he did. Most of ’em have heard that name and know he was something."

  And so my piece was published under the name "Isaac Newton."

  And Mr. Morton, joking, took to calling me "Sir."

  I heard nothing of Chaney or Samson that evening, and by and by I was so hungry that I couldn’t stay anymore but went off to find something to eat for my supper.

  Back at the livery stable, I had hidden my case in what had appeared to be a disused trunk of some sort, in which there were dusty bits of harness and a blanket or two. I found it sure enough, but as I was pulling it out, thinking distractedly of Thomas, the Negro man who oversaw the place came up behind me and put his hand on my arm.

  I started, set my case down, and turned around.

  "Nah, young massa, ya cain’t sleep heah na mah." This surprised me, since he hadn’t said anything when I’d taken Athens away.

  I shook my head, pretending to understand him less than I actually did.

  "Got ta be off, massa. This is Massa Harry’s livery. Ain’ nabody ’lowed to sleep in da hay. You done it once, but I ain’ gonna ’low it agin."

  I croaked, "I’ll help you with the horses."

  "You sick, young massa?" He stepped back.

  I put my hand to my throat—this was almost a reflex by now, and anyway, croaking was making my throat a little raw. "No, just hurt myself when I was a baby. I can help you throw out the hay to the animals and clean up. I don’t want to get in a room with anybody."

  "Well," said the man, "they’s plenty o’ drunks about."

  I felt in my pocket and pulled out a dollar, but the man turned his head, then said, "Massa Harry don’ like me to have no cash money. Ifn he was to find it on me, he’d think I was planning to run for sure." Then he eyed me closely and said, "You got a petticoat in your case, theah."

  "I do?" I whispered.

  "Well, you done lef’ the case, so I spied into it."

  "I don’t mind." But I did, though only because I thought that he would know I was a woman. But he wasn’t looking at me at all closely, as a few others had, and he said, "You got a use fo’ dat petticoat?"

  "No, not exactly."

  "Well, my gal would love dat thing."

  "How long can I stay, then?" I worked up a pretty loud croak.

  "Long as you like, long as you keep out of Massa Harry’s way. You kin spy him out easy enough, ’cause he weahs an eye patch and leans on a stick. He don’ come around much, but he’s mad when he do."

  "Why’s that?"

  "Well, he’s mad all the time. Missy says he done got hit on the haid sometime. I don’ know."

  "Shall I help you with the horses? I’m fond of horses."

  "Nah. Dat petticoat’s enough. I got mah ways heah, an’ Massa Harry, he got a way o’ knowin’ ifn I’m workin’ enough. He figures if I ain’ workin’ enough, then I’m plannin’."

  "Don’t be planning," I whispered suddenly.

  "I ain’ plannin’. Mah gal’s up to Lexington. I ain’ gonna run from dat gal!"

  I didn’t know who had urged the man not to plan, whether it was Lidie or Lyman. I said, "What’s your name?"

  "Nehemiah."

  "Thank you, Nehemiah. I am L—Mr. Lyman." I caught myself, because although Thomas would have invited the man, clearly a slave, to call him Thomas, Lyman, of Palmyra, Missouri, would certainly have not. I opened my case and pulled out my petticoat. Nehemiah took it, looked it over, balled it up, and thrust it under his arm with a friendly smile. I smiled back at him, realizing that I understood him readily now; his way of talking just took a little getting used to. He said, "Nah I’se turnin’ in fo de night. You bettah sleep back in da corner theah. Ain’ nobody gonna see you back theah." And he went off.

  Even though it had been a long day, I sat up in the hay for quite some time, marveling at my new situation and listening to the horses chewing and grunting nearby. In such an unpeaceful place, they made only peaceful sounds.

  CHAPTER 21

  Lyman Arquette Finds Success

  It is a well known fact, that mental excitement tends to weaken the physical system, unless it is counterbalanced by a corresponding increase of exercise and fresh air. — p. 43

  THINGS WENT ON in this way for three more days. Each night, I came back to the livery rather late, after Nehemiah had made himself scarce, and in the morning I left with the first light. The angry Master Harry was a man I did not want to run into. Cane, eye patch: meeting such a fellow was not an alluring prospect. I continued to linger at the newspaper office, hoping for another chance to ride Athens, but Mr. Morton had enough articles for his next edition, what with all the news of Lane’s army, and so he gave me to Franklin, who taught me to set type. I had the same trouble with setting type that I’d always had with sewing: my fingers were big and clumsy, and the fine work made me fidget and squirm. Franklin, of course, started me on headlines and advertisements, lots of white space and few words. It was tedious, but at least laying the words and letters into the forms backwards meant that I wasn’t as aware of what the articles were saying. In fact, setting type was not unlike making tiny stitches—minute and repetitive but aiming for speed. And I had to concentrate, so that the passing conversation in the office escaped me, and I fell into contemplating any new life in a rather dreamlike fashion. I was not afraid. Something about the handiwork of it lulled my fears. I knew what they would be if I had them, though—not fears for my safey, nor even fears of discovery, but something more primitive and simple, like vertigo. I could not believe how I had rushed about for those first two days of my manhood: now that I was quiet, I intimidated myself. Existing inside of Lyman Arquette was much harder when all I had to do was grunt and pick type than ever it had been when I had to talk, and ride, and interview, and saunter about upon the street. This was when I almost gave it up—not when I had to exert myself, but when I didn’t.

  After three days, as July turned into August, I felt time pressing on me, and I resolved to come up with another plan if I was given nothing more to do besides setting type on the following Monday. It was now Friday evening. As I was walking to the livery stable a little earlier than usual, I saw a boy of about my age (as Lyman) with a case of peaches on the back of his wagon. He was selling them to passersby for a dime apiece, as much as a meal in some parts of town, but they looked about as bright and peachy as a peach could look, and I reflected that three of them would make supper enough for that night. I handed him my thirty cents, and he told me that for another nickel I could have a fourth, so I put one in my pocket for Nehemiah, should I see him.

  I was thinking about Thomas when I turned the next corner, just before the livery, and almost saying to him that I couldn’t go on with this, that it would be far better to go back to K.T. and find Frank, when I saw Master Harry, and Master Harry was angry indeed. He had a buggy pulled up by the Nehemiah horse pen, with a team of chestnuts hitched to it, and he was sitting on the seat with his wife beside him. Her head was turned down and away, and I could hear him shouting. Well, to tell you the truth, I couldn’t resist. I was curious, and so I strolled by as though I had no business with the livery and didn’t know Nehemiah at all.

  "Boy, I told you them folks owed me for six weeks on them two mules!"

  "They tole me they done paid, Massa Harry, an’ they showed me a paper!"

  "They didn’t get no paper from me! Cain’t you recognize my hand?"

  "No, suh. Yes, suh. Well, it did look like yo’ hand, suh. I reckon they tricked me, suh—"

  Master Harry brandished his stick as if to strike Nehemiah, and his wife gasped, then said, "Harry, dear! For mercy’s sake, n
ot in the public street!"

  He turned on her. "May I strike my property, ma’am, and discipline him?"

  "Yes, Harry, but—"

  "I said, ’May I discipline my own property, or are we living in Massachusetts now?’ "

  "Yes, of course, Harry!"

  "Well, then." But he lowered the stick.

  "Them Samsons done me out of twelve dollars! That’s all your gal’s food for a year, Nehemiah."

  "No, suh! She a good gal! She work hard and keep a bright face on, everybody say so, don’t she, Missy Sarah?"

  "Yes, Nehemiah, but—" The woman cast a fearful glance at the glowering countenance of her husband, which seemed to pulsate with anger and swell around the band that held the eye patch in place. She took a deep breath. "Nehemiah, of course Master Harry may do as he likes with Josie. You know that."

  The look on Nehemiah’s face was a complex one—sadness and fear and anger, too, though he was trying to conquer that, and over everything a veneer of respect. He dipped his head. I had slowed down, but now Master Harry was looking at me, so I sped up and walked around the corner into the next street, where I stopped and clutched that one word to my bosom. The Samsons! The Samsons had cheated Master Harry!

  I waited in the shadow of one of the buildings there until I saw master and missy drive past, her with her bonnet pulled way forward and him whipping the chestnuts into a brisk trot. Then I ran back around the corner. Nehemiah was nowhere to be seen. I looked about, then called his name, and after a moment, he came from behind the shed. Without saying anything, I held out one of the peaches to him, and with only a brief hesitation, he took it and bit into it. There was a box there, turned on its side next to the corral, and I sat down on it. Nehemiah said nothing until he had finished his peach and sucked the last bits of juice off the pit. Then he said, "Missy won’ let ’im hurt my gal. She loves my gal lak her own sissy."

  "Is Josie your wife?" I whispered.

  "Nah. She mah own gal. Her ma were Lil. She passed on yeahs ago."

  I handed him another peach. After a bite of that, he said, "Dat waren’t bad for Massa Harry. He been a lot worse den dat sometimes. He done shot his own brother, you know. Dem boys had a duel, and Massa Jacob got kilt. It ’bout kilt the old missy. She didn’t last long after dat. She preferred Massa Jacob over Massa Harry, but dey waren’t much daylight between de two of ’em, ifn you ask me. Dey was both hotheaded little boys. But Massa Jacob, he kiss her an’ hug her, and Massa Harry, he push her away, so she saw it her way."

  "What did they duel over?" I whispered.

  "Somethang. Over bein’ brothers, you ask me. Never did git along. Dey was lookin’ fo’ dat fight all dey lives."

  He licked off the pit and put it in his pocket, and I handed him the third peach. They certainly did look delicious, I must say. I croaked, "Who are the Samsons?"

  "Oh, dem boys!" He laughed.

  "Well, they got you in trouble."

  "Dey is trouble. Dey from over by Blue Sprang, theahabouts. Dem boys gonna be hung someday."

  "Is there a boy named Chaney with them?"

  "Don’ know ’bout dat."

  "When did they leave their mules here?"

  "Well, dey come through with a bunch of animals a month or so ago. Couple mules, three or four horses, and dey put dem horses and mules up heah, and dey give me fi’ dollars. Well, dat’s enough fo’ one week heah ifn yo is a stranger and Massa Harry don’ know ya. He know dem, so he let dey old horse stay heah, four bits a week. Den dey rode off for a piece, den dey come back, and I say to dem dat dey owe fi’ mo’ dollars, and dey gi’ me three, and dere wagon fo’ what dey call security, and de wagon’s settin’ out heah, right wheah we sittin’ nah. Well, one mornin’, I gits heah an’ dat wagon is long gone, and den about a week later, I see it comin’ down the street, and I speak to de niggah who’s drivin’ it, and he say his massa done bought it faih and squaah, and dat massa, who war from Kentuck and new in town, he show Massa Harry de bill o’ sale, an’ a rifle an’ a pistol and a long knife and a big evil grin, and so dat was dat for Massa Harry!" Nehemiah let out a big rolling laugh.

  "Were there two men and a boy?"

  "Nah, dey was three or four men. But dey was only two men who come by heah two day ago and git dem mules. They showed me a paper! Ha ha ha! I war a fool fo’ dem! Ha ha ha!" The extortion of funds from Massa Harry cheered us both. I offered him the last peach, but he covered his mouth, gave a discreet eructation, and shook his head. I ate it myself. It was sublime, perhaps because I’d gotten some information, or perhaps because I found myself sublimely angry at Master Harry, the very type of a southern slavocrat villain, and exactly the sort of person Thomas thought peopled the south.

  The thing, of course, was to go to Blue Springs. I knew that now. Even if these Samsons weren’t the ones I was after, they might be cousins. Samson wasn’t so common a name; it was less common than Newton, or Harkness. In all of Quincy, for example, we had been the only Harknesses. If someone had come looking for any of us, all of us would have known where to find the others. I briefly pondered persuading Mr. Morton that I needed to use Athens on newspaper business, as Blue Springs (I asked around) was twenty-five or thirty miles east, past Independence. But were I to find my Samsons, then there could be some difficulty in returning Athens to his owner. Additionally, I wasn’t sure, either, that Athens would benefit by a thirty-mile trip or that I couldn’t go faster, in the end, than he. Athens was an agreeable mount in his way, but I felt that I had fairly well plumbed his willingness to exert himself. And then another day of setting type confirmed my own reluctance to proceed any further in the newspaper business. Some other branch of letters, I thought, might be more to my taste. I mentioned this to Mr. Morton, by way of parting, and he laughed and handed me three dollars. "Typesetting always shakes ’em out," he remarked. I thanked him for giving me a try. As I walked down the long staircase to the street, I felt myself wake up.

  When I returned to the livery stable that evening, a Saturday it was, I planned to probe Nehemiah a bit further about these Samsons, but he was nowhere to be found, and anyway, my conviction that they and Thomas’s killers were the same men already approached certainty.

  All the distractions of Kansas City and my new life as a man did not at all deflect me from my sense that everything swirled around Thomas’s killing and the justice to be exacted, as a ball on a rope swirls around the boy spinning in the center. Although I had never been a woman of much religious sentiment, I had faith in this—that every event and every step I might make must lead from Thomas to his killers, just as the engines and cars on rail tracks must lead from one station to the next. The distractions that beset, and even intrigued, both Lyman Arquette and Lidie Newton were entirely exterior to that. And so I got up early Sunday morning, pulled on my hat and boots, took up my case, and set out for Blue Springs. I had some biscuits that I saved from my supper the night before, and I ate them as I went along.

  I also gazed around me, memorizing the seething activity of Kansas City. The day was a hot one, and business started early, then there would be a lull in the afternoon, when folks who wanted to would go to services. There was none of the Sunday quiet here that prevailed even in Quincy, not to mention in places like New England. Forgoing business one-seventh of the time couldn’t be done where things were just building up. And anyway, there were few women around to present the claims of conscience.

  It didn’t take so long for me to get out of Kansas City. I was eager and strong, and it was easy to walk in trousers, as I had noticed before. Giving away my petticoat had lightened my case some, and I contemplated tossing the whole thing aside, but in the end I couldn’t quite do that. It represented too much who I’d been. I was afraid to lose that entirely.

  The difference between the look of the Missouri countryside and the look of K.T. countryside was striking. Missouri was regular land, the way you would see it in Illinois—hills and trees, fences and pasture, a regular amount of sky and a regular amount
of privacy to everything. Houses and barns peeked out from groves and appeared around bends in the road. The hills and their canopy of trees ate up the vastness of the sky and broke up the wind—though there was a breeze, it eddied about rather than simply bearing down. And cultivation had made its mark. The area wasn’t as settled as the area around Quincy—cabins as humble as ours in K.T. were visible here and there, some with hogs milling about them, revealing what they’d fallen to. Mostly these had given way to larger, more refined log houses, or even to clapboard dwellings, even to whitewashed ones. And I did pass big houses, set well back, glass windows elegantly ranged to either side of the front door. Not every field was being worked by slaves, not every wagon was being driven by a slave; I didn’t see only slaves throwing out animal feed, or hanging out wash, or beating carpets, or weeding gardens. It varied from one farm to another: this one could be set in Illinois or Ohio, with its neat, small house and its diminutive yard; that other one could be set in Kentuck or Tennessee, with its columns and veranda, its wide approach, and its crew of dark laborers. Mostly I saw Negroes busy with hoes in fields of hemp. I knew Missouri was a great place for hemp, not so much for cotton, and I knew what a field of hemp looked like, but that was all I knew about it. White men and boys were busy in fields, too, hoeing corn or flax, say. Taken all in all, Missouri was a mixed-up sort of place.

  There was a great deal of traffic between Independence and Kansas City, even on a Sunday, and many men on horseback, or driving wagons, went by. Some of them offered me rides, and as the day got hotter and my hat began to weigh upon my head and my case to weigh upon my arm, I was tempted to take one, but I had now been a man, a boy, for five or six days, which put me in an odd situation. Any lady could safely take a ride. No one would hurt, or even challenge, a lady in those days, but then it was as likely as black apples that a lady would be walking along the side of the road, carrying her case. On the other hand, no man, or boy, could safely take a ride, because he was sure to be probed as to where he came from, where he was going, what his business was, who his friends were. This was the effect of the goose question. And answers would have their degree of rightness and their potential punishments. Reflection gave me to believe that quizzes on the goose question were ones I didn’t necessarily know the proper replies to. Tarring and feathering, whipping and throwing in the river, shooting and hanging, had gotten to be things folks rather hankered to be doing, as an outlet for their feelings. So I didn’t accept any rides. Pretty soon my feet began to hurt inside my too large boots, but I took hold of Thomas’s watch in my pocket and went on. In the middle of the day, I sat down under a large oak, around on the side away from the road, and rested and dozed.