But Mrs. Bothwell would not be stopped and continues. “I tell you she is terrible to flirt and flatter. If she was married to my husband, she’d get a strapping, that’s for sure.” The room grew still, except for a little grumbling and foot stamping, and at last, Mrs. Bothwell glanced at us. “Well,” says she to the room. “I know what I have saw.”
They had been talking about me, of course, and I would have taken leave right then except for Mother Bullock’s hand gripping me about the waist. “And what did you see, Lavinah?” she asks, as if we had missed out on a pleasant conversation.
Mrs. Bothwell didn’t reply, but mutters stubbornly, “I never was one to back down.”
“No indeed, even when you are wrong,” says Mother Bullock. “Especially when you’re wrong.” Never before had Mother Bullock defended me so vigorously, which causes me to fear I was hated indeed.
Mrs. Bothwell glared at me, then stomped out, while the others became very busy examining their mail and moved aside so we could go to the postal window. “Nothing from Charlie,” the postmaster says as he took down two envelopes and squinted at the return addresses before handing them to us. “One from your sister, Miss Alice. I can’t make out the other’n, but it’s from Fort Madison. Now who might that be?” I only stared at him and did not reply, and he says to Mother Bullock, “I’ll send word if there’s one from Charlie, but I think the Rebs burn our boys’ letters for fuel, durn ’em.” Then he says to the room, “Them Secesh burn murderers, too.”
As I left the post office, I did indeed burn—with shame—and, Lizzie, I never felt so close to you in my life, for I know how it must have been for you, with Myrtle Lame spreading her lies. I have not been the subject of so many tongues since the incident of the Carter boy, and that was quickly done with.
Mother Bullock held on to me until we were outside, then let go and said she would read the lists posted at the newspaper office whilst I stopped at the dry-goods store for a spool of thread. They have got a good supply now, or so we had heard. “I should like to go home instead,” I tell her. “I don’t care to be the subject of people’s tongues.”
“And if you run away, what will people think?” Mother Bullock asks, trying to peer into my face, but I was looking at my toes. “Lavinah Bothwell and hers are the last run of shad. Do not stand on such small matters as gossip, Alice.” For a moment, I thought she was telling me she believed me innocent, but then she adds, “Remember that you are the wife of Charlie Bullock. You must not let them think you guilty, for Charlie’s sake. I shall never forgive you if you bring disgrace upon him.”
Well, I wouldn’t, either, so I held my head high and walked to the mercantile, where I was about to go inside, but the door opened and out came Nealie. I did not give her a chance to snub me, but says, “Well, hello, Nealie. You are looking fit, as always.”
She was surprised to see me. “Oh, Alice,” she exclaims, clasping her hands together. It did not appear she would say more, so I started past her, but she reached out and took my arm. “Stop a minute with me. You and me haven’t had a good talk for the longest time, and I have missed it.” I told her I would like nothing better but was on an errand and couldn’t keep Mother Bullock waiting.
“What are you here for?” Nealie asks quickly.
“Thread,” I says. “I hear they have got in a shipment of good linen thread.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the store. “Overpriced,” she says. “And gone, too. But I have more than I can use at home. I shall be glad to give you a spool, two if you like. I’ll bring them myself.”
“I wouldn’t want to rob you,” I says in way of thanks. I did not care to be beholden, but our money was tight, and I was grateful for the savings of a few pennies. Then it came to me what Nealie was about, and I glanced through the window of the shop. “Who’s inside?”
Nealie sighed. “Mrs. Bothwell. She is such a troublemaker. I thought I would save you an unpleasant encounter.”
“I already had one.”
“She will tire of it quick enough, and so will the others, as soon as there’s another subject to jabber about.” Nealie chuckled. “Do you remember Quintus Quayle, that mean old man that whipped his young wife and drove her off, then said he would kill her if she did not come back?”
I nodded. Nealie and I had talked about the incident and said we would have offered a refuge to Louise Quayle if we had known where she went. But after a night in the woods, she had gone back to her husband, and we were some disappointed in her for doing it.
“Well, Quintus was drunk and took sick and was buried Friday. On Saturday, Louise married again. So you see, here is your new subject for twaddle.”
I smiled but knew Louise was only a little extra for the gossips, like a spoonful of sugar sprinkled on a piecrust—me being the crust. “I don’t think Louise will replace me as a subject of conversation. From what you say, it appears no one is blaming her for Mr. Quayle’s death.”
We looked at each other for a moment, neither speaking. Nealie looked so forlorn that I decided then and there to give her at least a part of the explanation. The truth could not be any worse than what she had heard said about me from Mrs. Both-well, Mrs. Kittie, and the others, and besides, me and Nealie were fond of each other. The unpleasantness had rent our friendship. So I led her a few steps away from the mercantile, to a bench that couldn’t be seen from inside the store. “I will tell you what happened,” I says, not yet knowing how much of my story I would reveal.
“You don’t have to,” Nealie says, sitting down on a bench. She looked heavy and tired. Her pregnancy weighed on her, and I wondered if she had any women friends to help her through it. Certainly I had not helped, for I had not been to her farm in many months. I was relieved she would know soon enough the reason I had deserted her.
“Part of what you’ve heard already is true, although the truth has been embroidered like a sampler,” I begin. “I saw Mr. Samuel Smead in Hannibal, that is fact, but it was because of Mrs. Kittie’s meddling. I was surprised to see him, not having suspicioned he was there. I don’t know if Mrs. Kittie ran into him on the street in Hannibal, which is what she claimed, or if the two of them planned the thing before we left Slatyfork. But I have to say, Nealie, I didn’t object to having dinner with him.” When Nealie glanced at me sharply to make sure she had heard right, I added quickly, “I thought he had protected you against your husband.” I spoke before I thought, which I have always done so well.
“My husband?” Nealie asks.
I bit my lip, wishing I had kept that to myself—and that I had not run into Nealie at all. “I think all of this is better left unsaid.”
I stood up to leave, but Nealie grasped my skirt and would not let go. “What do you mean, Alice?”
“Oh, Nealie, do you want to hear it?” I looked around, hoping Mother Bullock was coming my way so that I could escape, but she was not in sight. So I sighed and sat back down and says, “I overheard the conversation in the kitchen the time I stayed with you. Mr. Samuel Smead was there threatening you—and me—but I couldn’t make out the voice, and I thought it was your husband instead. I believed then that Mr. Samuel Smead was protecting you from him. But I found out otherwise in Hannibal from something Mr. Samuel Smead said. I learned then that it was him frightened you so that morning.”
Nealie leaned against the bench and folded her hands across her stomach as she tried to recollect what had been said that day. “That is why you left so sudden, then?”
I nodded.
“And why you have avoided me since.”
I looked away. “Oh, Nealie, it distressed me so. I thought at the time that you would not want my interference. When I learned the truth later on, I was so frightened of running into your husband’s brother that I could not call on you.”
Nealie waved her hand, dismissing the subject. “How did you find out it was Samuel?”
“We went on a picnic, and I wanted to get away from Mrs. Kittie, who was making such a fool of herself over Mr. Howard, so
Mr. Smead and I walked along the river. He tried to force his attentions on me, and only through cunning did I escape. Oh, Nealie, he was an awful man.” Tears came to my eyes.
“He was, and no one knows it better than me,” Nealie says, balling her hands into fists and digging her nails into her palms.
“He tricked me into seeing him once more before I left Hannibal, and I told him I would not acknowledge him ever again.”
“But you did see him again.” Nealie turned to me and looked me full in the face, and I did not know if the remark was a question or a statement. I turned away and would not answer, and she says in a low voice, “Samuel Smead was an evil man, Alice. Frank would not deny his own brother. Before we married, he told me, ‘Recollect one thing. He will always be my brother,’ but he warned me to keep a watch and not to be alone with Samuel. I didn’t understand it at first. I thought the women he”—Nealie took a deep breath—“the women he hurt were, well, common women, and that he was drunken and crabbed and cross when he did things to them. I never imagined he would dishonor a decent woman, and stone-sober. If I had, I would have warned you. I had hoped your friendship would be a good influence on him. That was foolish. If I had talked it over with Frank, he would have told me so. Samuel had no regard for any woman. I have found it out myself.” Her eyes left my face, and she looked at her swollen belly. Then she looked at me again.
At first, I did not understand what she was telling me; then suddenly the truth of it struck me. “You mean Mr. Samuel Smead is the father—”
Nealie put her hand to my lips and says in a low, bitter voice, “Frank thinks it is his, of course, and no one else in the world but you knows otherwise. Samuel forced himself on me and laughed when it was done with. I hated him enough to kill him, and you had better believe I am not sorry he is dead. Hell is too good for him.” She gave a short laugh that was a kind of bark. “If you are the one who killed him, why, I love you the better for it.”
I wanted to put my arms around Nealie, but we were in public, and people walking by had looked at us curiously, so I only pressed her hand. “How can you bear to have the baby?”
Nealie thought that over. “At first, I tried to get rid of it, but I didn’t know how, and now I don’t mind so much, for Frank and I had wanted a child. It is half my baby, and there is a chance it is Frank’s. I’ll never know for sure.”
“You are very wise, Nealie.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I have no choice, do I?”
I didn’t answer, and in a moment, Nealie says, “There is Frank. I must go.” She stood, then turned to look down at me. “I believe he knew that sooner or later Samuel would come to a fearful reckoning, and he doesn’t blame the person who did it. Perhaps he is relieved.”
She took my hand, and of a sudden, I stood and whispered to her, “Nealie, I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill Samuel Smead.”
Nealie shuddered, either from my words or a kick by the baby. Then she smiled sadly and put her hand on my cheek before she turned and went to Mr. Frank Smead.
Lizzie, I do not think she believed me. I don’t think any of them believe me, even Mother Bullock. Only you. You know I didn’t kill him. You know I would not lie about such a terrible thing.
From your sister,
Alice Bullock
October 7, 1864
Dear Lizzie,
I take the present to write you a few lines, and a pleasanter letter you will never receive, for I vow to put aside care and cruel gossip and write only of good things. You cannot blame me, then, for writing such a short note.
I have set my chair in the sun in the doorway (stopping any roosters from crowing here, for we have had enough of sickness and death). The weeds are so high, I can’t see out worth anything, but they will die on their own soon enough, so what is the good in chopping them down? I believe Annie is right when she says I am as worthless for work today as a “lettuce patch without no hoeing.” If you find this hard to read, it is because I write it on a checkerboard.
Billy has been found—or at least he has found me. He did not join the army after all, but has run away to the west. He is in Nebraska, headed for the goldfields in Colorado. He said I might tell you but begs me not to give him away to Mama and Papa. I think they should be told he is all right, but I will not betray his confidence. At any rate, he did not give me an address, so Papa could not go for him, even if he was inclined to.
Mother Bullock found a perfect bramble rose in her garden this morning and put it into a dish on the table. She has never had one so late in the year, and I told her it was a good omen. But then we see good omens in everything. Mother Bullock even says she can see the dawning of peace. Well, if she can, she has better eyes than me, for I don’t even see a faint stripe. She has lived a good deal longer than me, however, so perhaps she is right.
We send mail to Charlie every week—I have wrote that if I can run a reaper, surely he can win the war—but have received no other letter from him. So Mother Bullock and I have concluded the lack of letters means Charlie is all right, for we would have heard if he was not. I suppose you will ask if that is the case, then, will a letter from Charlie mean he is dead? No indeed. He is not beat by considerable. We think he is well-off, whether we hear or not.
I feel very close to Charlie of late, as if we are kindred spirits. You know how married people who have been parted for a long time often grow apart? Me and Charlie have grown together, I think. Oh Lordy, I hope so. Do you know that Charlie has been away in the army for near two years, and when he joined up, we had been married but one (and I met him scarce six or five months before that)? So we have been separated more than half the time we have known each other.
It is altogether possible that I have grown too independent in these years. I hope Charlie does not expect to return to a wife who is too stupid to know to plant underground vegetables in the dark of the moon, and aboveground ones in the light. Although I did defer to Charlie in many things, I think he knows I am not a woman to say, “I shall do what you want me to do and be what you want me to be.” I have learned fast how to manage the farm and the money, else we would have been cheated out of it, for as Annie says, “There is so many mean men a woman has to deal with.” Instead of helping the poor soldier’s wife, they are all too glad to take advantage of her. Once, in town, I heard the merchant Mutt Huff tell a Union widow he would give her two pies the size of a saucer for twenty-five cents, when the sign plainly said they were ten cents apiece. She handed him the two bits, but I spoke up and explained the situation, then told Mr. Huff he should give her three pies for a quarter as penance for trying to cheat her. As a crowd had gathered, he was forced to do so.
Harve sent a dollar last week, so we are doing smartly. He has heard that the Rebs have transferred many of the prisoners from Andersonville, so he thinks Charlie may have gone elsewhere. That is good news indeed, for we hear Anderson ville is a stinking, wet forbidding place, but there is nothing to confirm it. Harve is in Alabama, where the rain is bad. He says they lost a wagon and two mules in the gumbo and wouldn’t have found them but for two pairs of pointed ears sticking up out of the mud. The bluecoats have been told not to shoot Secesh cows—so they bayonet them instead, sometimes cutting out a single steak and leaving the rest. They add to their provisions by buying from the Secesh, but they do not fear poisoning, for the Southern women make too much money from our Yankee soldiers to kill them off. Butter is sixty cents the pound, cheese fifty cents, and peaches twenty-five cents the dozen, and small at that.
Here is something no one here has remarked on: While marauders are still putting in an appearance in southern Iowa, there have been none near Slatyfork since Mr. Samuel Smead disappeared.
Piecake took her first step last week, and within a day, she walked across the room from Annie to me. But having done it, she has lost all ambition and is content to sit. She and Joybell prattle so that Annie says they make more noise than a jackass in a tin barn. As I write, Piecake and Joybell are playing with
the hollyhock dolls Mother Bullock made them. “Lookit here. This’n has a yellow dress,” says Joybell. I have given up asking Annie how she knows such things. Mother Bullock is stewing grapes, which we will have with doughnuts for supper, and as she pieces, Annie sings, “We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand strong.” Just now, she stopped and laughed. When I asked the reason, she replies, “Says I to myself, they durst not all come marching down Egg and Butter Road, eh, lady?” (Egg and Butter Road is what she calls the pike that runs in front of Bramble Farm, since it is often crowded with those going to market at Slatyfork.)
A cozier domestic scene you never saw, and it is all women. I think we need a man. I think we need Charlie.
Now write and say what mischief you have been into.
Darling Sister, I close,
Alice Bullock
P.S. As I was finishing the letter, Mother Bullock screamed and tipped over our flour barrel. There was a dead rat in it. Lizzie, I did not know how a rat could have gotten into the barrel, as we keep it closed tight. Then I remember that last time I was in town, Mr. Huff told me he had a supply of flour and that he would sell it to me cheap. I said we were not in need of it, but he lowered the price again, and I could not refuse. There were many smirks among the shoppers when he handed me the flour, which was in an oat sack. I had poured it into our barrel without paying much attention. Now I think he knew what was in it and sold it to me a purpose.
October 15, 1834
Dear Lizzie,
It has got cold of a sudden. There was an early frost that withered the last of Mother Bullock’s flowers, but she picked the dried stalks and put them into a jar on the table. Annie laughs every time she looks at them, saying she never knew anybody to decorate a house with dead weeds. But I think they are pretty. Mother Bullock says they make her remember her garden, which gave her much pleasure throughout the summer.
“There will be a surprise for you there in the garden next year,” she tells me one day. She sounded almost shy and turned away, for it is easier for her to be gruff than to show kindness or approval.
Alice's Tulips: A Novel Page 18
