Prairie Hearts

by J. B. Marsden

  “It’s about over, ain’t it?” Mrs. Conner sniffed into a cloth.

  Looking up into her red eyes, Emma could only nod silently and move over, signaling Mrs. Conner to sit beside her. She arranged the blankets over the children, watching their feeble breaths wane.

  “I lost some babes afore Ralph and Rowena come along. They’re precious to me and Conner.”

  Emma patted Mrs. Conner’s thin hand.

  Finally, something left the close air of the cabin and Emma knew they were dead.

  “Oh, my babes.” Mrs. Conner wailed and grabbed Ralph then the little girl, rocking them in her frail arms.

  The next morning, the preacher, Mr. Wentz, stood over the two small bundles wrapped in old blankets lying on the ground beside a single grave in the new pioneer cemetery outside Locust Hill, where several others, including Emma’s father and Faith, were buried.

  A small throng of the Conners’ neighbors ringed the grave. Carrie and Susannah Dixson took places next to Emma, who looked like death herself. Carrie’s hands itched to take her in her arms.

  Mr. Wentz began the prayers. Birds chirping brightly nearby belied the sad scene. Mrs. Conner huddled near the bundles, crying softly. Her husband stood some paces from her, his face a white stone.

  The preacher said a small eulogy, ending with, “We particularly mourn the passing of these two young’uns so early in their lives. God has a special place for little ones. A place where they are now well, playing in God’s garden.”

  Mrs. Conner let out a muffled cry and Mrs. Wallace enclosed her in a side embrace. Emma and Laura sniffled.

  Mr. Wentz intoned the final prayer and blessing and nodded to James.

  James and Blanton each lowered one child into the grave. Carrie, Emma, and others who had picked gardenias, cone flowers, or hollyhocks from their gardens tossed them in and stood back solemnly. Moose and another farmer tossed dirt into the dark hole.

  In his calming baritone, Mr. Wentz began singing Isaac Watts’s “Psalm 23.” “My shepherd will supply my need, Jehovah is his name; in pastures fresh he makes me feed beside the living stream.”

  Emma sang along with him in her lilting soprano, and others joined in, ending with the words of the last verse. “The sure provisions of my God attend me all my days; oh, may thy house be mine abode and all my work be praise. There would I find a settled rest, while others go and come; no more a stranger or a guest, but like a child at home.”

  The men replaced their hats and gathered to talk quietly. The women flocked around Mrs. Conner and led her to a small lunch on a plank table.

  His face a stoic mask, Conner stood fixed at the head of the fresh graves.

  Carrie signaled to James and they both approached him.

  “I’m sorry for your young’uns,” James said.

  Steely eyes finally peered at both James and Carrie. “Sorry, are ye?” Conner spit out. “You ain’t got nothing to be sorry about. Your young’uns are hale and hearty while mine lie moulderin’. And you. You and that witch Reynolds kilt my chillun. Damn you to hell with your evil concoctions. Poisons, more like. You and that trollop are Satan’s handmaids!” He stepped toward Carrie.

  James laid a hand on Conner’s chest. “Now, hold up. Your grief talks for ye. My sister and Miss Reynolds did their almighty best for Ralph and the babe.”

  Carrie, glad of James’s standing up for her and Emma, nevertheless trembled slightly, expecting Conner to come at her. He smelled of liquor, not a good sign.

  “Their best? They’re dead.”

  Blanton and Moose closed in.

  Conner eyed the three men. “If’n I get those two harlots alone, I’ll show ’em what sorrow is. Do to them as they done to my Ralph and Rowena. You just watch if’n I don’t.” He strode away from the men and Carrie in the opposite direction of the lunch.

  Carrie heard him mumble under his breath. “Those Goddamned witches.” She blew out the breath she’d been holding and looked to James, who nodded his support.

  “Go have funeral lunch with the other women. We’ll look out for him.”

  James patted Carrie’s shoulders and she moved toward the lunch table. He remained with Blanton and Moose at the graves.

  “We heard yelling. What happened?” Emma met Carrie and put a hand on her arm.

  Carrie breathed rapidly. “Conner,” she muttered.

  Wringing her hands, Mrs. Conner found them both in a huddle. “I am sorely sorry for my husband, Miss Reynolds, Miss Fletcher. He ain’t been right since the young’uns took sick. He… Don’t take to heart his rants. It’s the sorrow has turned his noggin. We ain’t had a good crop this summer and we lost a cow to wolves. Then Ralph and Rowena…” She stared sadly in the direction Conner had angrily stomped off.

  “Mrs. Conner, do you need some help? Does he take this out on you, too?”

  “No, Miss Reynolds. He’s been as silent as the deef. He gets in a pucker now and again, but he only blusters with me. I do get afeared from time to time, but he don’t pound on me or the chillun…‘Anyways’, he didn’t used to…‘The young’uns’…” She bent her head and sniffled.

  Emma embraced her. “My heart breaks for you and him.”

  “I reckon we can have more young’uns…”

  “Don’t go pondering that right now, Mrs. Conner. Emma and I wanted to help, but it likely was not pioneer shakes. I figure your babies had a more terrible fever. No body, not even Mr. Kerr, has medicine for such as that.”

  Mrs. Conner nodded into Emma’s shoulder and her lips curled into a small smile at Carrie’s words. “I ken what it were, Miss Fletcher. I don’t hold it against ye. You did what you could,” she murmured.

  Carrie kenned a woman standing tall for herself, and for her husband, who couldn’t.

  The day following the funeral, Carrie scrutinized the garden and decided they had more than enough produce to share and trade. She gathered some beans, late peas, and green onions into a burlap bag during the relative cool right after dawn chores. The day was as warm as the hot springs around Christian County. She figured Illinois would have cooler summers than Kentucky, but late June felt just like a muggy day at home.

  After she saddled Maisey and headed down the trail, she sweated then chilled. Her head pounded and her whole body ached. She ignored her pains, a daily fact of hard work.

  No one came out of the cabin, so she left the vegetables at the Conners’ door, then trotted toward Emma’s house at Locust Hill.

  But by the time Carrie arrived at Emma’s modest cabin with its well-kept gardens, her legs were so spent she could hardly sit on Maisey. Hot then cold coursed through her body. She slid off unsteadily just as Emma came out the door, drying her hands on a towel. Carrie stood propped next to Maisey to gather herself, then handed Emma the burlap bag.

  “We’ve got a sufficient plenty from the garden now.” She shook her head to rid herself of dizziness and grabbed Maisey’s mane. Don’t fall down.

  “Why, thank ye. You’re kindness itself.” Emma took the bag. “Your face. You’re sweating. You’re not well, sweeting.” She touched Carrie’s arm. “Come into the cabin right now.”

  Carrie pulled away weakly from Emma’s hand. “Only the heat.” She stumbled into Emma.

  Emma felt her forehead. “You’re burning up with fever. Get into the house.”

  “I need…James needs me today to cut some alfalfa for drying…,” Carrie mumbled. She could not shake off Emma from guiding her into the house and to her bed.

  “There will be no haying today. Come on, now. I don’t want to drag you, you’re too heavy, sweet Carrie. And heaven knows I can’t carry you.” Emma tugged Carrie’s shirt.

  When she saw the clean bed and registered how dirty she must be from picking produce, Carrie balked. “Your clean sheets…”

  With a small push, Carrie crumpled onto the bed.

  Emma rushed around the cabin, concocting an herbal tea of primrose to induce sleep and sorrel to aid the fever. Carrie thrashed in the bed.
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  “Drink this, sweeting.” Emma made sure Carrie had sipped at least half the cup. She pulled off Carrie’s dusty boots and wrestled her around to draw off her sturdy breeches. She’d never seen trousers like this until moving to the frontier. Kentuckians got the fabric from Massachusetts and now from the few Frenchmen still trading in Illinois. Denim, they called the fabric. Laura must’ve made the cotton shirt she next pulled off over Carrie’s head, the same fabric as their curtains.

  Carrie lay more quietly. The sorrel would not eradicate the fever altogether, but she had used it to allay it somewhat in her father’s last days.

  When she was satisfied that Carrie slept soundly, she found her two wool blankets and folded them on the foot of the small bed, one of the pieces of furniture that had made the journey to Illinois from their home in York State.

  She had two beds, this one for herself and the other that was to be her parents’, sitting in a separate bedroom. She couldn’t bring herself to bargain the extra bed away, even though other pioneers probably needed it more than she. Their Hudson Valley furnishings were the last link to Father and Mother. Pride, no doubt, was her worst sin.

  She shook herself from the vision of her father lying in his last days on this same bed, wracked with chills and fever, coughing up blood, until he wasted away to nothing in a matter of days. She would not let this happen again. She hoped against hope that Carrie had only the more common pioneer shakes, which invariably played itself out in a matter of two or three days. Images of the Conner children at their grave haunted her.

  Emma toiled throughout the day. She placed cool cloths on Carrie’s sweating brow or wrapped her in the blankets when the chills came again. She got more of the tea down Carrie near midday and ate a quick dinner herself.

  She checked on the goats, cow, and chickens, assuring that they had plenty of water in the heat.

  Carrie kicked off the blankets in her restlessness and perspiration covered her torso. All afternoon, she caressed Carrie’s legs, arms, and face with the cloth dipped in cool water.

  Mr. Winters worked that day in the fields, hoeing corn. When he approached the cabin at midday, Emma waved him off, telling him of Carrie’s fever.

  “Can I help you, Miss Reynolds?” he asked, turning his hat in his hands.

  “I can manage, but thank ye, Charles.”

  A few hours past midday, a boy’s voice cried from her yard, “Miss Reynolds!”

  Emma peeked out through the doorway, which she’d left open to offer any cool air to circulate in the oppressive cabin.

  Josh dismounted Napoleon.

  She met him at her door. “Josh. I imagine you’re here to see about your aunt.”

  “Yes’m.” Josh took off his wide-brimmed hat.

  “She’s here, but I’m afraid she’s ailing. You may want to stay out here so as not to take in the bad air.”

  “Ailing?” Josh’s eyes widened.

  “It’s a fever and chills. She’ll be down for a couple of days at the least.”

  Josh scrunched the hat in a wad. “Gosh a’mighty. She gonna die?”

  Emma empathized with the boy’s fears. “No, no. Your aunt’s tough and I’m dosing her with my medicines.”

  “Should I get Momma?” he asked plaintively, brows knit.

  “Don’t you worry your momma.”

  He smiled a little. Such a sweet boy.

  “I’ll tell her and Poppa what happened. Poppa missed her when she didn’t show up to cut hay.”

  “Tell them she can’t be moved for a few days. I’ll do my best to bring her home all well.”

  “Yes’m.” Josh scuffed his boots in the dirt. “I reckon I’ll trot on home.”

  She watched him mount and ride away. When she reentered the cabin, Carrie was sitting up and pulling the covers off. She whispered and attempted to rise from the bed.

  Emma ran to her and pushed her shoulders down. “No, Carrie. Get back in bed.”

  “The horses need feeding, Pa. I forgot to feed them last night. I need to do it.”

  Emma nearly laid on top of Carrie, so strong she was. “Please, get back into the bed.” Carrie’s eyes were unfocused. “You’re dreaming, my sweet.”

  Carrie looked more closely at Emma. “Who in tarnation are you?” She pushed Emma away so hard she landed on the floor with a thud.

  Carrie took one unsteady step. “I’m telling you the horses didn’t get fed. Pa will hide me.” Then, putting her hand on her forehead, Carrie weakly sank onto the bed.

  Determined, Emma grabbed Carrie’s shoulders again, pushing her down and covering her muscled body. Carrie shook with chills. Emma drew the blankets up and tucked them around her. She rested back against the pillow.

  It was time for another dose. Emma put the kettle over the dying embers of the fire, added another log, and waited for the water to heat.

  During an interminable night, Emma constantly tended Carrie’s alternating fever and chills, and dosed her two more times even as she came in and out of awareness, only at times knowing Emma. Carrie attempted to get up again twice in the night, always teetering on unsteady legs. Emma considered tying her to the bed, but thought better of such an extreme measure.

  By dawn, both Emma and Carrie slept deeply, Carrie in the small bed and Emma in her parents’ larger one.

  Working on only two or three hours of sleep, Emma rose stiffly. The stifling heat wrapped the cabin in a cocoon, even though the sun barely rose above the prairie. Immediately, her housedress spotted with perspiration. Checking on Carrie, she found the blankets again on the floor and her body shivering. Emma sighed, and pulled the blankets up and tucked them tightly around her. Emma was disappointed that Carrie’s forehead was still quite warm to the touch, and she determined to keep up the herbal teas and the cool cloths.

  “My dear, sweet girl,” Emma cooed while stroking Carrie’s hair gently. “I’m so sorry you are laid up like this. I know you hate such weakness.”

  Carrie’s feverish eyes cracked open. “Emma?”

  “Yes, my darling. It’s me.”

  In a halting, feeble voice, Carrie said, “What’s going on? Why am I here?” She tried lifting her head.

  “No, sweet. Lie still. You’ve come down with a fever.”

  “How long?”

  “Just yesterday.”

  Carrie nodded. “I remember. Did you get the sack I brought?”

  “Aye, right here. You go back to sleep now.” Emma smiled. “You’re always thinking of me,” she whispered.

  Though she hated that Carrie had taken ill, she loved being able to tend to her. Carrie didn’t let others make over her or treat her kindly the whole time she’d known her these past months. Such a manly woman in so many ways, playing the tough. But underneath ran a woman with a woman’s tender heart.

  Emma left Carrie sleeping and prepared the teas. She brought a cup to Carrie’s lips. Carrie opened one eye. “What is this bitter brew?” she said in a raspy whisper.

  Emma smoothed the sweaty locks away from her face. “It’s medicine. Drink it down, now.”

  Carrie sipped the whole cup down.

  “Back to sleep, sweeting.”

  After some breakfast of tea, day-old biscuits, and goat’s cheese, Emma planned out her day. The goats and cow needing milking. Although Mr. Winters usually took care of the ox, neither Maisey and Titan, nor the cow and goats, had been fed. Nor had she completed the milking. She could not leave the cabin, so sat close to the bed and darned stockings.

  Carrie began to writhe, sending blankets to the floor again. Her forehead dripped with perspiration. Emma filled the basin she kept at the bed with water from the bucket and dabbed Carrie to cool the fever, tutting and fussing, calling her “my sweet,” and caressing Carrie’s cheek.

  A quiet knock sounded at the jamb of the open door.

  Emma spun around to see Laura holding a stoppered crockery jar. Dear heavens, I hope she didn’t see me making over Carrie. Emma felt a blush rise. “Laura,” she cried, her voice an a
bnormally high squeak. “You took the life from me. I didn’t hear you ride up.” She jumped from the side of the Carrie’s bed. “Come in, come in, if you please.” She took the jar.

  Laura’s expression gave nothing away, but she did not meet Emma’s eyes. “I thought to bring some broth we had laid by.” She gestured to the jar as she gazed at Carrie’s form in the bed. “How’s she fare?”

  “See for yourself. The fever hasn’t broken yet. I’m giving her some teas.”

  Laura bent down over Carrie. “Oh, honey. How you doing?” She touched Carrie’s forehead. “Does she have what the Conner young’uns suffered from?” A deep crease in Laura’s brow brought back the heartbreak of the last week.

  “I don’t figure she does. She’s more awake. Last evening, she was not so aware, but this morn, she knows her surroundings and who I am. And, thank heavens, her constitution is much stronger than the Conners. I do not think she would have come down so soon with the fever the children had.”

  Carrie slept on.

  Laura nodded and looked around the cabin.

  Emma flinched, suddenly seeing its untidiness.

  “Reckon you been nursing Carrie night and day. I came over to see if I could spell you for a time.”

  “Oh.” Emma exhaled. “Aye, I could do my morning chores. The animals haven’t been cared for today. Have you had breakfast?” Emma rolled her eyes inwardly. Of course Laura, always up before sunup and baking, had not only eaten but had fed her entire clan.

  “I ate. I could use some water. It’s mighty warm again today.”

  “Of course. Please sit.” Emma pointed to a chair and busied herself with getting a cup of water from her bucket.

  Laura drank deeply, emptying the cup, and handed it back to Emma.

  They looked at each other directly for a full minute. Emma’s heart raced.

  Laura finally spoke. “Is there something between you and my sister-in-law?”