by Risner, Fay
In the wavering, yellow flickers of lantern light, Anselm was bent over a large, wooden box. Made of pine, it wasn’t square shaped like a bedding box but long and narrower on one end than the other.
Anselm, are you about ready to call it a night? You should come in and warm up. It's cold out here.” A creepy feeling surged through Miranda as she stared at the box he was building. She couldn't take her eyes off it.
“I am almost done. I vill be in soon,” he re-plied without looking up.
Miranda sounded harsher than she meant to when she asked, “What are you building?”
At the curt sound of her voice, Anselm straightened up so he could look at her. “I am getting prepared for de trip west.”
“What’s the box for?” Miranda asked.
Anselm fiddled with his hammer. “I dought we could put your fine linens and dishes in it. Vit a straw tick over de top, it would make you a place to rest in de wagon when you haf one of your sinking spells.”
“I see.” She eyed the box’s tapered end. This wooden box wasn’t like any storage trunk she’d ever seen. She did like the smell of the freshly sawed pine, but that was all. “Anselm, the box is shaped like a coffin.”
Her husband put his hands on her shoulders as he said flatly, “Ya, dat iss vat it iss.”
“I'd rest just as comfortably with the straw tick on the wagon bed,” Miranda reasoned. “Why do we need to take a coffin with us?”
Anselm stared at his hammer. “Ve need to be practical about des trip. It vas kind of you to consent to go. I know it vas just to please me, but I know, and so do you, dat de travel vill be hard on you vit yur weakness.” He met her eyes. The dire thought put a grieved expression on his face. He was imagining her dead. “I figured we should be prepared in de wilderness just in case. Clarence says dere are not many trees when we get in de plains. No vay to build a good, sturdy box like dis one. Besides, to stop to build a box might mean I couldn't keep up with de rest of de wagon train. Dey would leave me.” Her husband’s voice trailed off as he studied the incredulous expression on his wife's face.
“Well, whatever you think is best,” Miranda agreed feebly. She felt a sicking knot building in her midsection as she thought, Heaven forbid my death be the cause of Anselm getting left behind.
She had to hurry out of the barn and get away from her coffin before she had a real sinking spell. This idea was going to take some getting used to, knowing that coffin was traveling with them. “It's too cold out here for me. I need to get back to the house and sit down.” At the door, she twisted around. “It’ll be bedtime soon. Are you coming in?”
“I will be in shortly,” he said, not looking in her direction as he raised the hammer over another nail.
Chapter 3
While she waited for Anselm to come inside, Miranda plopped down in her rocker by the fireplace. She leaned her head back, closed her eyes and remembered her girlish dream from all those years ago. She wanted to marry a wealthy, handsome man.
She came very close to doing just that. When she met Anselm, he was better off financially than the other young men in town. He already had a home and a profitable farm. Anselm was a kind, thoughtful gentleman. She'd always been glad she picked him. They had been very happy.
Now she wondered how had the years gotten away from her so fast? It was twenty years ago when Swedish born Anselm proposed. Miranda knew she made a good catch when she accepted his proposal.
The blond, handsome man was twenty seven, ten years older than her. Everyone knew he was a hard worker and likeable.
He’d established a paying farm near Zumbroto and build a nice house and outbuildings. The farm was considered a show place by all the neighbors.
This mattered to Miranda. When she was small, her parents moved the family, a son and two daughters, from a hard scrabble farm in Illinois to Zumbroto.
Her father, George Wickman, opened up a mercantile store with a loan from the bank. Because she was the baby of the family, Miranda grew up a town girl. She was spoiled rotten by her mother, Jane, and knew not one thing about farming.
Of course, her parents seemed pleased when Anselm asked if he could escort Miranda to church. A few church dates helped him build up his courage. Sunday evenings, he eat supper with her and her folks, before he asked her to walk out with him for a stroll in the moonlight. In the summer, they went on picnics not far from town in a grove of cottonwood by Mossman's pond. Miranda's mother gladly fixed their lunches.
On one of those picnics, Anselm proposed right after her seventeenth birthday. Miranda said yes. One evening, Anselm, dressed in his Sunday suit, came to town. He asked her father for permission to marry his daughter.
Her parents were thrilled to have a man with a successful farm marry their youngest daughter. It didn't hurt her parents found the man as likeable as Miranda did.
Before the wedding, her mother had one bit of advice for Miranda. Jane Wickman said in her bitter edged voice that Miranda should take the word of someone who knew about working on a farm. Drudgery would make an old woman out of a young girl before she aged naturally. She said Miranda should talk to Anselm about hiring her a servant to take care of the housework.
Jane stated adamantly she was all too glad to leave the farm and move to town. Now she had a much easier life, helping George wait on customers in the mercantile store.
They had always been isolated on the farm and worked long hours. Now she enjoyed her social life and church gatherings in town.
As soon as she could Miranda would be wise to talk Anselm into buying them a house in town. He could go to his farm every day from town just as easy.
Miranda was sure Anselm wouldn't consent to move to town. She'd have to make do on the farm with him.
Once Miranda settled into Anselm's house, she got a taste of what her mother told her. So she explained to Anselm her mother hadn't groomed her to cook and keep house. She bluntly stated she was a poor excuse for a homemaker.
Anselm replied while he hugged her, “It iss nice dat you are honest about your shortcomings. I'll haf you know dat does not bother me. I am just glad you vant to be my wife and share my home vit me. Ve all haf someding we do not do well. Dat you are not a good cook iss all right. You vill learn.”
Miranda saw this conversation wasn't going her way. She pressed on with she was worried she might not be able to keep up with all the work her husband expected from her. She didn't want him to be disappointed in her. That's why she had to tell him the truth.
She said she had an idea that might help. It would be a good idea for him to hire her a woman to help with cooking and housework.
Anselm told her he couldn’t afford to pay a hired girl. She should do the best she could. He assured her he'd understand. Over time with practice, she'd learn how to do her housework. He was sure of it. In his mind, that ended the subject.
By the end of first year of marriage, her rough, reddened hands cause Miranda concern. She took to studying her sun darkened face in the mirror. The sun caused dark spots on her face and hands. The Minnesota breezes caused her skin to dry out and wrinkle. She no longer saw the good looks of the young beauty she once was in her mirror.
She was sure her mother had been right with her dire prediction. Miranda decided she wasn’t about to finish wearing out her good looks and health. She had to find a solution, and maybe in time she could reverse the damage done to her skin.
For a while, she wrestled silently with her worries, wondering how to solve her problem. She loved her hard working husband and felt obligated to do her share of the work. To speak up honestly to say she didn't like ruining her good looks with hard farm tasks might make her look vain in Anselm's eyes. Of course, she knew she was, but she didn't want her husband to think so.
She thought about the first year of drudgery. She'd learned to cook her husband’s basic meals to keep them both from starving. She washed their clothes and cleaned the house. She kept their garden weeded and watered during the dry spells. The garden produ
ced enough bounty she was able put up food for the winter.
Miranda didn't have time, with all the work to be done at home, to spend idle time visiting her girlfriends in town. She missed the care free social life she enjoyed as a teenager.
On Sundays, they barely made it to church in time for the sermon. After church, they ate dinner with her folks. Miranda was able to catch up on news about her friends and the other people in town. Since customers stayed to visit when they shopped, gossip was easy for Miranda's folks to hear at the store.
Anselm would shake his head on the way home and tease Miranda that her folks sure liked to sliddersladder, his word for gossip. Miranda understood as she patted his knee.
Anselm had been raised to never say anything about anyone if he couldn't say something good. That didn't keep her from wanting to hear what happened to people in town.
Many times, Miranda endured her mother's frowns when the older woman stared at Miranda's rough, reddened hands. The dark spots on her face and back of her hands became another source of observation.
Miranda steeled herself for another lecture, but it didn't come. If she had to venture a guess, she figured it was because Jane Wickman knew her daughter had married a good man. He'd always take care of her. Miranda's mother realized Miranda was luckier than most of the women in town.
Miranda silently agreed.
The time came when everyone in the area had terrifying worries. A diphtheria epidemic hit and ravaged the countryside. That put an end to travel for months. No one had experienced this disease before. People didn't have any knowledge about the disease, and there wasn't a cure. The town doctor decided the safest thing to do was stay home away from other people. Hopefully, that stopped the disease from spreading. They all hoped and prayed they wouldn't the unlucky ones that died.
Anselm and Miranda didn't know about the outbreak until they drove to town for church. Miranda's mother met them at the yard gate. Jane Wickman told them to stay on the buck-board because of the epidemic. They should go home without talking to anyone and stay there until she sent word it was safe to get around others.
Concerned folks roamed the neighborhood. They left sick people food on the edge of the porches. Lots of yelling was done from the road to houses to make sure at least one person was still alive inside. That helped determine the progress of a family's illness.
When their supplies were low, Anselm said he'd risk driving to the mercantile to get what they needed from Miranda's parents. She offered to go along with him, but he said she was better off staying home where he knew she was safe.
The Mercantile door was unlocked, but there wasn't anyone in the store. Anselm called out, “Hello. anyone here?”
From the back room, George Wickman responded back, “Pick out what you need, Anselm. Leave your money on the counter. I ain't waiting on no one until I know it's safe to get near folks.”
“Ja, I understand,” Anselm replied.
“You and Miranda still well?” George asked from behind the wall.
“Ja, we are fine,” Anselm called back. “Miranda's mother iss vell I trust.”
“She is but tired of being house bound. We've lost several citizens so far. Cain't even bury them for fear of getting sick ourselves. This is a terrible, scary time. Sure is bad for business I can tell you,” George complained.
Once Miranda's folks didn't hear of any new outbreaks, her father drove out to the farm to let them know church was going to start up again on Sunday. First thing all week long on the minister's agenda was funerals for all the dead.
Of course, most winters made traveling hard. One horrible blizzard howled through the night, depositing heavy, wet snow half way up the windows. The rest of the way up snow plastered to the glass so Miranda couldn't see out.
The snow wasn't quite as deep on the west side of the house, sheltered from the storm's path. Anselm found a window he could climb out. He kept a shovel in the kitchen. Once he slipped out of the window with his shovel, he prepared to work his way around the house to the porch and dig in front of the door.
Anselm dug a tunnel to the barn by the rope he attached from the house to the barn in late fall. He didn't intend to get lost in a blizzard on the way to the barn to milk and feed his stock.
That night the wind howled, and with a vengeance blew snow right back in his tunnel. He had to dig his path again the next morning. That was pretty much the way it went with each storm.
And so from year to year, they spent their married life in the same way. A few years in to the marriage, Miranda wasn't sure what started Anselm thinking she was really sickly.
Perhaps, the fact she became less talkative and rarely smiled helped him think she wasn't feeling well. He didn't realize she was unhappy, and he didn't bother to ask. They didn't talk about such things. Maybe it was the fact, Anselm expected her to produce him sons to help him farm. She proved to be barren.
For two or three days, her monthly cycle always sent her to bed with a horrible headache. At those times, Anselm had to fend for himself. He fixed hot tea and broth for her. Miranda liked being waited on by her husband, but she wished she didn't have to feel so lousy for it to happen.
She could have told him he shouldn't worry. The way she felt each month wasn't life threatening. She'd inherited the symptoms from her mother. Anselm didn't ask, because they didn't talk about such things.
When Anselm finally mentioned what he called her weak condition, she understood he worried about her developing worse health.
She didn't expect that to happen, but she didn't bother to enlighten him. She hated the worried look on his face, but she liked the few restful days in bed while him waited on her.
As long as Anselm thought she was in poor health, he didn’t expect as much work from her. So she did as little as possible to help him on the farm. She sure didn't encourage Anselm to think differently.
For good measure, Miranda had more headaches that put her in bed when she thought Anselm might ask her to help him. Such as going with him to the timber to bring in their winter wood supply.
She could have carried the wood to the buckboard and helped stack the slabs into ricks at home. She just didn't want Anselm to think she was up to the task. Finally, Anselm gave in and hired Hildur Landers to help her.
Now when Miranda had to do any physical work, she was short of breath from lack of exercise. She didn’t have the energy she once had. She sat around way too much, and she’d gained weight from Hildur's good cooking.
A realization came to her now that she was thirty seven years old. The years she'd acquired caused her to lose her youthful looks anyway no matter how she tried to prevent it.
Poor dear Anselm didn’t seem to notice she was looking older so worried was he over what he thought were her health problems. She was confident she could depend on him to love her no matter how sickly she seemed.
Then last summer a drought hit the area. Most of the small pears dropped from the trees in the orchard before they ripened. The wheat and corn plants wilted in the fields. One after another of Anselm's cash crops were destroyed. For the first time in years, his hay crop wasn't sufficient to feed his cattle and horses.
Worry over his farm income made him listen to Clarence Swensen when the man told him about homesteading out west. He was excited about the news that wagon trains were headed west, Anselm wanted to join one of them. He told Miranda he knew the long, hazardous trip would be hard on her. He was willing to leave the decision to her and abide by what she wanted to do.
Leaving her cozy house, Hildur's help and her comfortable routine was not what Miranda wanted at all. Perhaps it was out of guilt, she agreed to give the journey a try. That’s what Anselm wanted. Besides, he couldn't afford to pay Hildur to help her anymore.
For years, she let him think she wasn't well while he worked hard to provide for both of them. Suddenly, her conscious bothered her. Maybe she owed him the chance at this new life. But contrary to what Anselm feared, she didn’t figure on dying along the
trail. She wasn’t that bad off. The problem was Anselm would find out soon enough she'd lied to him when the going got rough, and she had to do her share of work
Chapter 4
Time passed faster than Miranda would have liked. Before she wanted it to be, it was the last of April, and time to leave. All Anselm could talk about was their adventure while they traveled across the country, the different sights and settling in a new place.
Miranda wanted her husband to be happy, but she wasn't the least bit excited about the trip. She knew she'd have to do the cooking and laundry herself while they were on the trail. Even after they reached Willamette Valley, she'd put in the hours of drudgery she'd gotten out of all these years.
While they traveled, none of the other women in the wagon train would be willing to work for her. They would have their hands full, caring for their own families.
Once the settlers arrived in Willamette Valley, the neighbor women would be busy helping their husbands carve out their homesteads in the wilderness before winter came. Beside, the settlers probably lived miles apart. Doing her own work is what all those hard working women would expect from her.
The wives of the neighbors always frowned and looked down their noses at her. Some of those judgmental women, like Florence Swensen, would be on this trip. They would watch her and criticize her every twinge.
So against her better judgment, Miranda consented to go with Anselm on this arduous journey. Even though she now realized there was one more reason this was the worst possible time for her to travel. She'd missed her last two monthlys. After all these years, she was pretty sure now she was pregnant. She didn't feel she could share the news with her husband. If for her sake he stayed on the farm, she was afraid he'd always resent her for keeping him from his dream.
The day came when Anselm brought that awful symbol of her demise, the coffin, in the house. He set it in the middle of the parlor floor.
