August 4, 1887
The hottest day of all time is the day I took my twelfth grade test. My hand is so sore from writing for five straight hours that I can hardly bear to write this journal. I did arithmetic and mathematics in the first two hours, and then history, and wrote an essay on “The Framing of the Constitution,” and another one on the issue of States’ Rights in regards to setting the groundwork for the Civil War, and then I had to answer some things about literature and grammar, translate some Latin paragraphs, and there was a long question about a book I have never heard of called The Iliad. Then a huge spelling test. Plenty of things I studied there were no questions about at all, and I asked Mrs. Fish if I couldn’t just answer another question, instead of the one I didn’t know.
It’s all done now. It will be three or four months before I get my test back. The United States Board of Normal Education will have written down—someplace in the Government Capitol Building for the whole world to see—that Sarah Elliot has failed. They will write to me about each question I failed. I have not even told Mama I took this test, only Jack and Mrs. Fish know about it.
Taking a school test is a new way to be afraid, and takes the knees right out from under you. If I’m riding a horse and get thrown, it’s just a matter of getting back on. And if I’m fighting for my life, there’s only living and dying to choose from. But taking that test, that’s like showing other people the inside of your thoughts, and just waiting for them to say, wrong, wrong, wrong, and you can have a thought that seems right but since you never went to school, maybe it isn’t. It’s over now, and I will just have to forget about it. I wish I’d never even gone this morning.
September 3, 1887
I have felt troubled ever since I pulled that fool stunt and took that school test. This morning I not only felt troubled but sick to boot. At first I thought I got a bad egg for breakfast, but, as I was sitting with Sterling Foster, one of my ranch hands, going over the cost of winter feed, it dawned on me to count back days. As soon as he left, I counted twice, using my fingers the third time.
Pregnant again. I am fit to be tied. This is not what I wanted now, not at all. Jack and I had agreed we’d wait a while longer. This is pure accident and just the dreariest news ever. I’m just not ready for another round of nursing and diapers and all night crying jags. I sat in my rocking chair and fretted and felt sorry for myself until I wanted to laugh. This happens when we’re trying not to have children. Whatever would it be like if we weren’t being careful? And Charlie will still be in diapers when this one comes. The only good thing is that I’ll have Juana to help.
I left her with the children and walked to the adjutant’s office to see if I could find Jack. Captain Elliot, I said, there’s something urgent I’d like to see you about. He looked up and smiled, and all the men around him tipped their hats and left the room like I was some kind of royal person or something. Well, Jack, I started, I’m not sure yet, not absolutely certain, that is, but I think possibly, then I took a deep breath.
A new baby? he finished for me. I just nodded. Then I hugged him and felt my throat tighten up. Once again, he was grinning when I left him.
October 1, 1887
It has been weeks of beautiful weather, and not a hint of chill in the air. I know winter will come soon enough. Most of the time the baby sickness has been mild with this one. Little Charlie is trying to learn to walk, pulling himself up on everything and anything that won’t move, and now on something that will. He has discovered, by some secret communication that must exist between his head and Toobuddy’s, that the dog will let him hold his fur and stand real still, and he puts one little blocky foot in front of the other, and makes his way around the porch with Toobuddy as a helper. This is a good thing, too, as Charlie is thrilled with the partnership, and Jack and April both think it is terribly funny, and Toobuddy doesn’t mind much that I can tell. So I don’t have to bend over and pick up Charlie nearly as often now that he is under his own power more or less. I have been to the doctor and know for certain that we will have an addition to our family in the late spring, and I don’t feel as sad about it as I did at first. Now I’m looking forward to a new little one.
When Jack came in to dinner tonight he brought with him a Sergeant Lockwood and an Indian Scout named Blue Horse. I am sure that is not his real name, but it is what he prefers to be called by the soldiers. Well, I invited them all to sit down, and although the meal was interrupted by the children, both our guests had their fill and we had some good conversation. Then the men had coffee on the porch while I cleaned up inside. It was good to hear them talking and laughing now and then. Sometimes one or the other of them would remember some sad occasion from the past, and they would fall quiet, then someone would speak up with a new tale.
Blue Horse said he liked the meal and Sergeant Lockwood agreed that he had not had such good food in quite a while. Jack said to me, Sarah, come sit here by me, and then we had some more coffee and visited until nearly nine-thirty.
October 4, 1887
Well, it is all over this post and probably all over town that I have had Scout Blue Horse at my dinner table and treated him like he was a real man. For heaven’s sake. How did they think I would treat him, like a stuffed man? Two of the mens’ wives actually side stepped away from me as I walked on the boardwalk to the post mail. At first I didn’t have any idea what they had stuck in their craw, then Jack happened to bring up last evening that the soldiers at the fort who knew how valuable Scout Blue Horse was to their lives all thought I was a top sport to have him at my table. So I said to him, well, their wives don’t seem to value those soldiers’ hides as much as they do. I hope I never lose so much of my mind as that. Some folks are the trifling least when it comes to sense. I told Jack right then, You just ask Blue Horse to come here as much as he wants, and have a glass of lemonade or a cup of coffee any time. If he is your friend and is helping keep you alive, he is always welcome in my parlor.
Jack just nodded at me. You know, he said, Blue Horse is lonesome just like most of the other men. If you offer him, you’ll have regular company.
Well, I said, we have plenty of coffee.
He smiled, and hung his uniform over the back of a chair for tomorrow. It is odd, how he has these little routines every night. I feel like there is a rhythm to our lives now that I have never known before. Although there are periods when he is gone, and the rhythm is missing, as soon as he returns it takes up again and is a real comfort.
The ranch is doing well and we have sold most of the new steers to a big herd being driven clear to Abilene. The heifers we’ll be keeping the first few years to build the herd. Between that and selling soap, I have nearly five hundred dollars saved up in a rusty can in the pantry. Tomorrow I think I’ll put some of it in the bank.
October 5, 1887
Juana has left here, mad and distressed. She was hanging some clothes on the line when here came Jack home with Blue Horse and some other fellow I hadn’t met yet. When she laid eyes on Blue Horse, she looked scared and mad at once, and said to me she wouldn’t work in a house where his tribe stepped. I tried and tried to ask her what happened, and why she was so mad at him. She said only that their people had been enemies since the sun gave birth to the earth, and she would be always ashamed if she even looked on his shadow. Now I was purely confused. I had no idea that some Indians didn’t like each other. Jack said it’s true, that is why Blue Horse will help the soldiers against the Apache. To him the U. S. Army is just reinforcements sent by strong spirits to fight his enemies.
I had a little appointment with a bank clerk this morning. I wore a brown calico let out in the middle, and a straw bonnet, and I had patched the hole in my apron with a brand new pocket so it looked good as new, but altogether I was not too fancy looking because I figured that walking through this town with a Colt revolver in one pocket and five hundred dollars in the other, it wouldn’t be smart to look too prosperous. Inside the bank building there were a few men in black suits a
nd vests, wearing little stiff collars. I went to one of the windows and introduced myself, and after I told the man what I wanted to do, he had the gall to sniff in my face and tell me to let my husband handle my money and not trouble myself with the confusion of it all.
Oh, I said, how confusing is it? If it makes you confused, I surely don’t want this bank holding my five hundred dollars.
Well, he perked right up and said, Five hundred dollars? Mrs. Elliot, I believe we can be of service to you after all.
I doubt it, I told him. I made this money with the sweat of my brow and the labor of my hands and I’ve got the rawhide to prove it. I don’t intend to leave it with any man that thinks money is confusing.
He puckered up his face kind of nervous, and said, Oh, I assure you, Ma’am, we are not the slightest bit confused about money. We have a fifteen-hundred pound safe, he says. Completely, one-hundred-percent theft proof.
He had a way of talking like I haven’t heard since Mrs. Hoover left us the stake money from her wagon and took the train to Boston. I’ve seen a safe blown up, on a train, I said back.
We offer one point nine percent interest, annually, he said.
I stood up. Well, I told him, I can turn this around in supplies and stock and see about twenty-five percent on cattle as long as there’s no drought, and a hundred and fifteen percent on soap, more if there is a drought. It’s a little at a time, but it comes right in steady as a clock. In case that’s confusing to you, Mister, it’s called profit. Thank you for your time, and good day.
I left him there with his mouth opening and closing, and I was madder than a wet hen. Eastern fellows come out here and think they’ve got money so they’ve got all the answers, when all they’ve really got is soft, mushy hands and a black suit and a scratchy neck collar holding them together. I’d as soon deal with that bandito on the road, he was a lot more honest.
October 6, 1887
Blue Horse has become a regular fixture on my front porch. Any time he is nearby, he sits himself in our shade. He doesn’t come in, and I expect it is because this is not a big place and the children are already underfoot, but he is pleased to just sort of bide his time near us. Part of me is proud that we have an understanding like this, and part of me startles at the sight of an Indian man out my kitchen window. Juana had started to teach me a few Apache words. But now that I know Blue Horse is an enemy to them, I daren’t say a one of them.
October 7, 1887
There has been a bad disturbance of renegade Indians so close by that Jack left here with a detachment and word for me to keep weapons loaded and ready, and bar the doors and windows until he returned. He told me to listen especially to the air for a bugle call that went a certain way, and then he hummed it. It will mean we are all to be ready for an attack on the fort, but then he said it was not very likely. I asked him was the trouble going on near Cienega Creek, and he said no, but east between here and Fort Grant, and the lines are cut so they are not sure if there is a fort still there or not.
After I got my bread dough set to rising, I cleared off the table of flour and got out my gun cleaning rags and brushes and oil, and made sure I was ready for trouble. While I was counting my ammunition and checking every shell for signs of a crack, I started thinking hard about Jack being out there possibly fighting for his life. I wished I was with him, but then I wished he was here, home and safe, but also to protect us if need be.
October 10, 1887
It is a certain kind of terror to know I carry a baby and have the other two to protect. Even with the soldiers around, I feel so alone. Children are a burden to a mother, but not the way a heavy box is to a mule. Our children weigh hard on my heart, and thinking about them growing up honest and healthy, or just living to grow up at all, makes a load in my chest that is bigger than the safe at the bank, and more valuable to me than all the gold inside it.
I was plum out of diapers, and some things won’t wait, Indians or no, so I did up some wash and was hanging clothes on the line when I saw the column come in the fort looking bedraggled and footsore. With them there were nearly two dozen riderless horses with Army saddles on. Jack jumped from his horse and ran to the troop wagon where there were loaded up several wounded men. He wrapped his arm around one man and helped him into the infirmary. I stood on the porch and watched the soldiers unload man after man out of a wagon. It was a sorry sight. Not all of them were still alive, and they laid the dead ones in a row on the ground to leave room for the wounded inside.
Tonight Jack finally came in the door pale and grim. His uniform was bloody, and right away I asked him, Tell me quick, is that yours or someone else’s blood?
Lockwood, he said. The damn fool took two arrows through the chest.
Well, Jack, I said, that doesn’t make him a fool, just unlucky.
He looked down at his shirt and said real quiet, He stepped in front of me. They were meant for me. He went to the bedroom and took off his clothes, and I told him I would pull him a bath.
While Jack was taking a bath, I sat to rock the baby and made a vow to myself to pray every day for Sergeant Lockwood, and I heard the water sloshing and thought how good to know my husband is in there in that room instead of the one across the post where those young men are groaning and dying. If Sergeant Lockwood is ever able to eat, I will make him soup every single day.
April was looking at some paper dolls cut from a catalog. Charlie snuffled because my tears were falling in his face. He is getting so big, and just wanted to go to bed, so I put him down quick and wiped my face before Jack could see it.
I asked Jack would he have some supper, but he didn’t eat much. He said not to worry, and that they were pretty sure the Indians would not come this far. As soon as the Army started for home, the Indians did the same, but the men here are only home to re-group and go out again to be sure, and to re-string the telegraph lines. Jack hardly said a word all evening, and then late at night, almost ten o’clock, he went back to the infirmary.
October 22, 1887
I took a feather pillow and a soft blanket to Sergeant Lockwood, and I have been making him soup nearly every day. Yesterday he asked me if I would mind including something like scrambled eggs or fried chicken. He is so thankful for my efforts, he says. I am purely thankful for his bravery, or I might not have a husband. But I cannot bring myself to say those things, as every time I do I start to well up with tears, so I just try to smile and bring him food and leave.
I seem to always have company at home, now. Blue Horse just seems to be around all the time, and I have gotten over being edgy around him. He eats with us if he is hungry, but sometimes does not. If it gets cold outside he just walks right in without even a knock or a fare-thee-well, and sits by the fire, then when he is warm he goes away.
Every few days when we get mail, I hurry to the Postmaster’s and look for the news about that test. I’m sure they must have lost it, or someone robbed the train it was on, and so it never reached that government office. It has been too long. If they ever received it I would have heard by now.
October 30, 1887
Jack is out of town again so the children and I went to church alone, and as soon as we walked in, people sort of edged away on the pews and made plenty of room around us. All this over serving coffee to the Army Scout. I was feeling mighty stiff and sorry I was there amongst them. It’s a fine day when the likes of the low down, lawless hooligans that make up a place like Tucson can look down their noses at me. There is a fellow over there by the window who runs a gambling hall and saloon where there is at least one murder a month, and one there who has a saloon and seven painted floozies on the top floor. Then over there, is Mrs. Watts, who cusses her own children like a mule skinner, but she has got her nose high in the air and pretended to not look at me when I said hello. And over there near the organist’s bench is Mrs. O’Rourke, who is on her fifth or sixth husband and all of the former ones died young and wealthy. Here they are in church, but folks scoot away from me as if I was a si
dewinder. Well, this is just a fine bunch of good wholesome men and women around me, and all have their eyes focused just right on the Lord and His good Providence, I am sure.
The service hadn’t even started yet and Charlie began to squirm, and I was considering getting up and leaving and just sitting at home and reading to my children from the Bible instead of putting up with the likes of this. But, as I stood up and straightened my dress, here came Sergeant Lockwood, looking all spit and polished. I knew he was not gone on the campaign with Jack and Blue Horse because he has had a hard time recovering from his arrow wounds to the chest and he had taken pneumonia from it.
He took off his hat and bowed to me and smiled, and said, sort of loud so everyone could hear, as I know they were straining to anyway, Mrs. Elliot, in the absence of your husband, and on behalf of General Crook, the commander of this fort, and the many soldiers whose lives have been saved by your husband’s courage, will you allow me the privilege of accompanying you in church this morning and seeing you safely home?
Well, you could have heard a pin land on a pillow in that room. Certainly, I said, if you don’t mind wiggly children over much.
Then the preacher came in and the singing started. Sergeant Lockwood whispered to me that he was much improved but still couldn’t draw breath to sing. He held first Charlie and then April, then Charlie again, and both of them were busy all through the service admiring and poking at his brass buttons. I remembered how hard Jack works polishing all those buttons for an occasion. It made me appreciate how Sergeant Lockwood has just now given to me a gift of his support and admiration for Jack, and also a gift of the time he would have to spend polishing those buttons again after my children got through handling and drooling on every last one of them.
These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 Page 32
