Life is Short But Wide

by J. California Cooper

  Irene was a medium-sized woman, bright and healthy. She had smooth brown-gold skin and clear, hazel eyes like dusky sunshine. Even though they were sad eyes, they were bright and honest, seeking some happiness, yet reserved and subdued. Irene was twenty-two years old. She had been struggling to survive ever since she could remember. She had run away from a motherless home, at last, five years ago. Running from her father, brothers, uncles, and white men pulling after her body.

  Irene, clean, mannerable, and presenting herself well, had found work as a servant to a family with three children. It was a fairly wealthy house, and they spent good money on the children's education and tutors. Irene always sat in on all their classes for the five years she was there.

  She had learned to read and write and more, along with the children. She was alert to life's demands. Her learning was her tool for her living. Now she taught what she had learned. She still had her same books, loved, worn, but very well cared for. She taught from them, sometimes copied from them for her students, but seldom let anyone touch them. No, sir!

  Now, Val thought of her very, very often. He loved his mother and his Indian family, but sometimes he had looked at American houses in passing. He wondered at the privacy and quiet inside those rooms. Native Americans lived in many types of structures. Some even built low, flat houses similar to the white man's before the white man came. But those were Indians who worked the land, not migrating with the seasons and animals.

  Val, being a young healthy man, looked at all women, their clothes, their ways. He was handsome, and they looked at him, too. He did not like the white women because of his family's history with white men, but he knew there were Brown women, and women who were Black, like his father. And now, he had met one. He liked the women on his reservation, but felt like they were sisters. “Oh, Irene, Irene.”

  It had taken a few months, though he asked often, before Irene allowed him to take walks with her. She knew about men and how they could be. She had a healthy and wise fear of them.

  Val, with good sense, was patient. He was a thoughtful man, and discovered she liked books and learning. He could not read, but he had brought her a few books here and there, wherever he could find them. Spelling books, simple reading books, and even one from Europe he had found in a bartering shop. The books pleased her; that made him happy.

  When she found he could not read, she decided to teach him. He had already begun to fall in love with her, and now, slowly she began to love him, not too much, but a little. They did not see each other often because of his work schedule, but it was at least twice a month.

  Soon, very soon, that was not enough for him. He wanted her as his wife. He decided to ask her to marry him. She had to decide whether she loved him a little or liked him a lot. She decided to ask Mz. Shaw, the landlady, for some advice.

  Mz. Shaw had thoughts. “Chile, that man is a working man. He don' seem to be no gambler or liar. He always pay me what he owe me, and don't make no fuss bout it. That Indian friend of his, he ain't no thief, cause I done tried him. And, usually, if a Indian like you, you a pretty good person. How do ya feel bout him? You gonna have to sleep with him! I don blive you done done that already, has you?” She smiled and gave Irene a sly, sidelong inquiring look.

  Irene gave a little gasp, “No, ma'am! The last thing I need is a baby sittin on my hip!”

  Mz. Shaw nodded her head, wisely, as she said, “That's right, chile, keep that dress down over yo knees. Cause once they get that juney-puney, mens be gone.” She moved a pan on the hot stove, stirred another one as she shook her head dolefully. “Chile, this here world is a wilderness, and you out here struggling on yo own, all by yo'self. This a hard world sometime. Specially for womens. I ain't crazy bout that ole husband of mine, but he's mine, and he work hard WITH me, not on me. He younger 'en me, but I watches him.”

  Irene, though serious, smiled in understanding.

  Mz. Shaw continued, as she stirred her pots. “Ya got to think bout some things! Where you gonna live? Is he gonna take you to live on some Indian reservation? Live in the wilds? Ya betta ask him bout that. Do he save his money? Ya need a home if you gonna leave this'un here. Ya can't walk out into the streets and hope for the best; ya betta check on that best first. Why, you a lady what can read and write! See what he have in store for ya. If ya ain't sure you loves him, ya can wait for a little. You a nicelookin woman. Be somebody else comin right along.” She gave Irene that sidelong look again. “Less'en ya done already give him some, and liked it ya own self.”

  As Irene left for her class, she waved the last words away and started hoping her students were there waiting in the shack. She needed even those few nickels and dimes, and even pennies.

  Later, Irene took Mz. Shaw's words and, as she lay in her small, but clean and neat bed in her small, but clean room that night she thought about Val. “I don't like poor. I don't want to be poor. And if I have children I want them to do better'n me. Be something besides born. But I do like him, Val. He kind of old, I think. Thirty-three or something. He way older than me. But, still, he is working. Oh, Lord, don't you forget to direct my feet. Cause I'm scared. Scared to do it, and scared not to.”

  Val and Irene continued their courtship, such as it was, and it bloomed slowly. She still didn't know if she loved him when she agreed to marry him.

  She looked in his eyes, seriously, and told him, “I don't want to be no farmer's wife, Val. I ain't diggin and picking round in no dirt under no hot sun. I don't want to cry cause I don't have no food either. I don't want no babies standing out under no hot sun with their eyes full of tears and their stomach full of empty air.”

  His heart was full of love, so he assured her, “I'll take care of you. I make a good livin, and I ain't no farmer, though I do know how to plant things to grow; every Indian does.”

  “You a Indian?”

  “They are men, and I am a man.”

  •

  Val had been referred to a Jewish man who dealt in land and such, Mr. Meyer, who lived in the Wideland area. Val rode over to see him one day. Mr. Meyer told him, “I believe there is something coming up pretty quick. There is a lady, an old lady, whose children have moved east and their mother is out here all alone. She is the last white person on that street. They want to move her back east with them. She don't want to go, but I blive she is going. Give me a couple of weeks, then stop back by and perhaps I will have it to show you. It's gonna cost round bout two hundred dollars, though. It's worth it. Don't know if you can owe them or not, but they got banks here. You got credit?”

  Val shook his head, “No, ain't never needed none.”

  Mr. Meyer shook his head, understanding. “Well, it's time to think of all these things now you're gonna get married. Young man, when you get married many things change.” He laughed softly. “For the better, though, I must say. It's usually for the better. She a nice woman?”

  Val grinned and nodded his head. “She is very nice. A good woman. A teacher.”

  Mr. Meyer liked that. “Well, we'll just work on getting a good house for her.”

  So now Val was back to look at the house.

  Val liked the house and was even surprised it was as nice as it was. It was two stories, large and well built. The original owner had used good materials for this home for his family, and it was well planned out and built.

  The house was about thirty-five years old, it had been white but was yellowing from age. It sat on five acres of land with neighboring houses, usually with the same degree of land, clustered in that area. The house had a large front porch with most windows looking out to the trees and yard.

  The owner, a calculating builder, balanced the house. A lawn and a once blooming garden, now dying. Ventilation, drainage, and water service. All prime quality. Iron clamps and girders, fireproof. He had also built a three-room shotgun house far off to the side of the front acreage, for a laborer, or a guest, if needed.

  There were four large bedrooms upstairs: a parlor room, dining room, and
kitchen downstairs. The carpets were worn thin from many years of children, cleanings, and now neglect, as children left home and the widowed mother aged. The curtains, left behind, lifting in the breeze, were a bit ragged. The paint in all the rooms was old and yellowed with age.

  The kitchen had a good wood stove for cooking and heat, and the sink had a water pump bringing water from the well. Stairs with a solid banister led upstairs to the bedrooms. The movers had left an upright piano in the living room; it just sat there looking lonely, but slightly grand.

  Val thought all in all it was a good house for his young bride, who had never had a home of her own. “It will be mine. And my children will have a home. All this land, and these trees, the birds in them and the bugs beneath them will be mine. Ours.”

  He paid one hundred and fifty dollars for the house. A goodly sum at that time. That money stood for years of sleeping on the ground, and sweat running down his face and back, smelling of horses and cattle.

  The house sat on the acreage with a good number of trees. Fine beautiful oaks, a good-sized pecan tree, many willows and other types. Plus several fruit trees, peach, apple, plum, full grown. They all needed some attention, but Val knew how to do that too.

  Family name of Smith rented the house across the road. Joseph and Bertha, recently married. Glean and poor. Joe worked at the lumberyard, and did odd handyman jobs for a thin living.

  Bertha stayed home to care for her husband, running off now and again to do domestic work to help with the money they sorely needed. She mostly sat in a narrow front window to watch life go slowly by. She loved flowers and horses. Actually she loved anything live.

  Val hired Bertha to clean his new house for his new wife. Wash the curtains, polish the banister and floors, clean the fireplaces, polish up the kitchen, and all the things a woman would see needed to be done. He smiled proudly. “I want my wife to like this here house, Mz. Bertha! This my first and only wife and this our first house!”

  Proud, he nearly flew back to Irene, wrapped his arms around her, saying, “Better start getting ready to move, sweetheart, into your own house. I done … I have bought it. It's ours! I blive you are going to like it!”

  Perhaps only someone who has never had a home can imagine the feeling that possessed Irene's heart. Her eyes filled with tears that rolled down her happy face. She was very happy, and grateful to Val. She thought to herself as she looked at him, “My husband. I am beginning a new life! A good life.”

  Then, immediately, she said aloud to him, “There is that one thing I want you to remember, Val. I am not going to be no farmer. I mean that, Val.”

  He smiled and pressed her warm, firm body to his as he said, “You will have a little kitchen garden, won't you?”

  “A little' kitchen garden is fine, but no big un!” She stepped back from his arms. “I can't hardly believe that house is nice as you said it is. And you had the money for all that?”

  He smiled and pulled her back to his hungry arms, saying nothing.

  She sighed. “Well, I'm just happy to have a house to our-self.”

  On the day they moved, Val had driven the wagon for what seemed to Irene a long time before they reached Wideland. She was frowning, looking the town over when Val turned off a busy street and proceeded up a small hill. At last Val pointed, and Irene finally did see the house. Then Val turned the wagon, filled with her few things and many secondhand gifts from Mz. Shaw, into the yard. She was more than pleased. “A house! My own house! Two stories!” In her thoughts she said, “At last, mine!”

  Wings was there to help Val, of course. They happily emptied the wagon, and became at home in their new house. Irene ran her hand, lovingly, over the piano. Tears formed for the hundredth time as she thought, “My mind is at rest, my heart is at rest, because my man has provided. Our home. Thank You, God.”

  Val was surprised later that night. He knew his wife was tired; they all were. But Irene opened her heart and body up to him as never before. Their new bedroom, a thin mattress on the floor, was filled with shining joy, pleasure, and bliss. Even for Irene, for the first time. At last, she understood why everyone wanted to do this thing called loving. It was loving; something to be shared only with your husband, not a father, uncle, or brother, or strange white man.

  When Val and Irene had their first child, a baby girl, Irene named her Rose, because Irene loved roses. She had planted a few and they came up! Another few years, and the second, and last, child was born. They let Wings name her. He named her Tante. Irene liked the sound of the name so it remained.

  Bertha and Joseph had their first child somewhere around that time; my mother was having her own children, so she didn't keep up with everybody over there so much at that time.

  Anyway, having listened to Irene teach about literature, Bertha had learned some odd bits; she named her daughter Juliet. It took about a year to discover that child, Juliet, was born with a problem with her legs. She always fell when she tried to walk. People said she could crawl very well, and did. But she had to be watched closely so she wouldn't crawl on or into the wrong things.

  By that time, Wings had married a lovely maiden named Spring Feather. But he did not move off the reservation. “Spring wants to be close to her mother,” Wings said. “Until she learns to cook better, I am happy to be where both our mothers do the cooking.” He looked down at his hands as he smiled, saying, “I'll never move away from there anyway. I like being free. I don't want five or six trees, I want a forest! I want a range. I want to see all the animals and birds every day.” Val leaned back in his chair, smiled in agreement, but he loved his Irene and his home.

  They slowly settled into the neighborhood. In time they bought some chickens for the hen house. Several colors, several kinds. Eggs were a main staple; they wouldn't have to buy them. Then he started turning the earth for planting food. Irene watched him; it wouldn't be a farm. For the moment, their start in life was complete.

  Except for the times Irene brought little Rose to Bertha's house, and later, Tante, so she could talk with Bertha, there was no company for either woman. Bertha's family lived too far away; in any event she never mentioned them, and none came to visit. As Juliet grew, she waited, sitting every day looking through a front window at the door across the street … and life.

  Juliet was glad to have a family near even if they weren't big enough to come through that door yet. In her young mind she thought, like her mama told her, “They comin one day!”

  Over the years, Wings, always observant, had noticed the little girl sitting lonely in the window across the street from his friends. The next time he came to visit Val, Wings brought some material with him, and showed Juliet how to make simple baskets. “You can make em out of anything, once you learn the way it goes. But use these reeds for now. I'll bring you some more when I remember.”

  Young Juliet possessed a strong mind, and was given to much thinking in her quiet, lonely life. She was almost overwhelmed when she saw he had also brought a small container which would hold about four pounds of rich soil. He put the container close to the window where the sunshine would reach it, and said, “Here are some seeds. You plant em in this here dirt, water em every day accordin to how hot it is and how dry they are. When they grow, you can eat em. I'm not tellin you what they are. I'll let you be surprised.”

  When he left, Juliet's heart was about to burst! He had no idea how much that meant to the little disabled girl who was beginning to feel so useless to herself and her mother around the house.

  As time went by, when Irene had a little extra time, she took little scraps of material and made a doll for Juliet. Then she would give Juliet little pieces of material, left over from her own sewing for her family, so Juliet could learn to sew, and make things for her doll. In this way Irene and Bertha became friends. Bertha was so glad to have someone showing interest, caring about her child.

  Sometimes Bertha did small domestic jobs for a few ladies, and Irene would keep an eye on Juliet to see she was still sitt
ing in the window where Bertha sat her every day.

  Irene's kitchen garden was larger now, but not too large. She laughed as she told Val, “I got help, and company now. I can work long as I want to, and stop when I want to. I like gardening now.” She quickly added, “I don't want any larger garden though.” Years passed that way. Time passes quickly when life is smooth and you are busy.

  Rose and Tante were good-mannered, lovely little girls. Their mother insisted on good manners. “Makes a huge difference in this here world!” They both wore their full heads of hair braided, one braid on each shoulder with bright little ribbons or knitting yarn tied neatly on them. Their cheeks rosy in smooth, healthy skin, Rose's rich brown, and Tante's golden-pecan.

  Their mother insisted that they care for their teeth morning and night. “We don't have no dentist money to waste round here! We can keep our teeth long as we live if we just keep them clean.”

  She started early teaching them to read, write, and count. “There isn't any room for fools in this world, ladies! You never know when you gonna have to take care your own self!”

  Val brought them books, whatever kind, whenever he saw one for sale that he could afford. When he couldn't afford it, he paid down, asking the seller to hold it for just a little while.

  Rose was a gentle and caring child, moving without haste, but steadily through her chores. She was always trying to help her mother even when she didn't know exactly how. Tante was zesty, full of energy, life, and laughter. She was also very smart; she learned quickly. She preferred being out of the house, always finding something to do in the yard. She begged Val for a dog.

  Val brought them a healthy, frisky German shepherd dog to grow up with them, to protect them. Everyone loved the dog they named Brave, except the neighbors. He didn't like to “do his business” in his own yard; he went far down the road in the neighbors' yards. Keeping up with, and cleaning up after, Brave was one of Tante's jobs. She liked the job, it gave her a chance to talk to all the other people in her neighborhood.