Shay woke early between Kay-Lonnie and Lena but their eyes were already open, waiting for her. They never wiggled till she woke, seeming to breathe the same air, thinking the same thoughts. Susie pulled the quilt over her curly head on the other side of the big bed, grumping about Shay’s cold feet. Shay, Kay-Lonnie and Lena padded barefoot to the kitchen, hugged Mama from behind and found their places at the table as Mama set out Shay’s Campbell Soup Kids’ mug of milk and Minnie Mouse Mug for Kay-Lonnie and Lena to share since they never drank much. After their toast and jam, Shay finished off the milk, helped them wipe their faces, push their chairs in place without screeching and carried their dishes to Mama at the sink. “You’re such a good girl. Oh, and Kay-Lonnie and Lena, too.” Mama smiled.
Racing to the barn, they got there just as Daddy finished milking Jessie. “Heh! Cookie! What got you out so early?” Continue reading →
We could hear laughter as we opened the screen door. Miss Laura Mae and Miss Oly were dawdling over coffee when we walked in, tears running down their cheeks.
I stared, having no idea people could laugh and cry at the same time. “You ladies are having a great time. No don’t get up. I’ll get my own coffee. What in the world is so funny?” Mother wanted to know. They both took hankies out of apron pockets, wiping their eyes before cleaning glasses.
“It’s just so good to be together again after twenty-five years apart. Ory was just tellin’ me about her ol’ man comin’ in drunk an’ blackin’ her eye one night. Once he went to sleep acrost the bed, she took a bed slat to ‘im an beat’im black an’ blue.”
She gave me my biscuit as Mother shooed me out to my roost on the back step.
Miss Ory broke in, “Yeah, Harvey was a Holiness preacher but it didn’t keep ‘im from gittin’ loaded an’ chasin’ anything in a skirt of a Saturday night. After I beat ‘im, he was so sore he could’n’ hardly move the next mornin’when it was time for preachin’. He got up in the pulpit an’ said he’d been a’cuttin firewood an’ a tree fell on him. It was only the Lord’s mercy that saved him. I wasn’t gonna let him got away with that. I got up an’ testified askin’ to Lord to forgive me for tyin’ ‘im up in a sheet an’ beatin’ ‘im up so bad for tomcattin’ around.
I was gonna leave ‘im after that. I wasn’t gonna take no whoopin’ from no man, but his brothers come by after church. They was deacons an’ their daddy had been the preacher there till he passed. They said if I’d stay, they’d see Harvey did’n’ never lay a hand on me agin’ but I was still set on leavin’. Then all three of ’em’said they’d church me if I left, an’ I’d go to Hell. The little fellers was listening an’ set up a howl. ‘Don’t make my mama go to Hell!’
They was a carryin’ on so, I didn’t have the heart to git up an’ leave, with them a’scared I was ‘goin’ to Hell. No youngun ought to have to worry ’bout somethin’ like that.
They was good as their word. If Harvey got out ‘o line, they’d straighten ‘im out. Harvey was still a Heller,but he ain’t whooped on me ner the younguns no more an’ that’s all I keered about.
One time after we had a row, all of a sudden he calmed down an’ took me fish in’. We left the little fellers with his mama an’ walked down to the crick. He wanted to go out in his ol’ boat, even though he knowed I’d ruther fish off the bank. I could’n’ swin an’ I was a’scared o’water. He said he’d been gittin’ them fine white perch just off the point. I do love white perch. Anyways, when we got a ways out, he stood up an’ was a’rockin’the boat back an’forth till he tipped us over. I knewed he meant me to drown.
I heard later he was a’slippin aroun’ with that Garrett woman. I let his brothers know an’ they told him nothin’ better happen to me. Not long after that he had a stroke an’ needed me to take keer o’ him. Couldn’t of planned it better myself. He never was no more trouble to me, so it all worked out fine. I didn’ git churched an’ worry the kids, I still had my home, an’ Harvey could’n’ worry me no more. Things was peaceful after that, but I shore don’t miss puttin’on up with him ner makin’ them durn biscuits ever’ mornin’. I don’t aim to ever make another biscuit!”
“Kathleen, I hate to bother you, but Oly is comin’in on the bus Friday. Would you mind takin’ me to pick her up?” I listened in as Miss Laura buttered my biscuit.
“Sure, I’ll be glad to. Is that the one whose husband just died?” Mother asked.
“Yes, he’d been sick in bed a long time,” replied Miss Laura. “I was poorly when he died and couldn’t make it for the funeral, so Oly told me to just wait an’she’d come stay awhile after she got him buried. We never got to visit much. She was just a baby when she married an’ and I only got to see her once in a great while.”
I was fascinated with the idea of a baby marrying and couldn’t wait to see her. Maybe we could play together. As I stood on the step with my biscuit, I was lost in thought. imagining a pig-tailed girl my age steeping off a school bus, the only bus I knew a thing about.
Mother pulled in at Mitchell’s Cafe out on the highway on Friday. We sweltered in the July heat as Billy and I tusseled in the back seat. Mother and Miss Laura Mae fanned themselves as heat monkeys danced on the pavement. Dust fogged in the open car windows as a long gray vehickle with a picture of a skinny dog pulled up.
“Here she comes!” Miss Laura Mae clutched her big black purse and heaved herself out of the car as the bus door opened.
I sat up and watched for a little girl in a wedding dress to emerge, but no one got off but an old lady in a flowered dress. Miss Laura Mae hurried over, catching her in a huge hug smashing their identical pushes between them. Her curly white hair was caught up in a hair net and she wore the same black lace-up old lady oxfords as Miss Laura Mae. The bus driver pulled her bag from a bin on the side of the bus. Mother helped her load it in the trunk.
“Kathleen, this is my sister, Oly.” Sadly, I abandoned my hope of a playmate.
“Nice to meet you, Miss Oly. How are you doing?”
“Oh, I couldn’t be better,” said Miss Oly. “I ain’t baked a biscuit since June 6th, the day my Ol’ man died!”
Miss Laura Mae and Miss Oly laughed out loud as Mother replied, “Oh, that’s nice,” as she cranked the car.
Emma spent the night and eased Anya’s concerns about baby care and breast-feeding. If she thought Anya seemed less than experienced, she voiced no concerns. “Don’t worry. It’ll all come back to you. After you’ve had six or seven, you’ll be nursing one, luggin’ one on your hip, an’ swattin’ one out of trouble without turning a hair. You sure birthed this one easy. You don’t look like you got child-bearin’ hips, but she didn’t give you a bit of trouble. I got a lot wider hips than you, but when I had my Marthy………..” Anya enjoyed the tenor of her friend’s conversation, but was lost in admiration for the tiny baby. Her ears perked up when Emma moved on to a discussion of the baby’s size. “I do believe that’s the smallest, healthy baby I ever seen. My Melvin would’a made two of her, but he was a big ol’ lunker. I swear, this baby could sleep in a shoe box.!”
Joe looked alarmed. “But she’s big enough, ain’t she? I’m a big feller, but my ma never weighed ninety pounds and she could’a whooped a bear.”
“No, Joe. She’s breathin’ fine, her color’s good, and she’s nursing like there ain’t no tomorrow. This baby’s just little, not puny.” Emma laughed at his concerns.
Anya acted huffy. “Now don’t go making my baby out to be too little. Give her time and she’ll set you straight. I ain’t never been big as nothin’ but I can take care of you two if you keep picking on my baby.” She smiled and nuzzled its sweetness.
Emma laughed and Joe looked alarmed. “I ain’t talkin’ against the baby. I just got worried when Emma said she was too little.”
Emma threw a towel at him. “I ain’t never said nothin’ was wrong with being little. I was just saying she’s smaller than them buffaloes I birthed. I think that was right smart of Anya to cook up a little one.” They all got a good laugh out of that. “I do believe I’d keep her away from other folks till she catches up a little so she don’t catch something. What do y’all reckon on naming this big ol’ gal?”
Anya looked to Joe. He thought long before speaking, “Well, if you ain’t opposed, Anya. I’d like to name her after two of the finest women I ever knowed, Rose for my mama and Anya for you.”
Anya looked at him with love. “I’d be right proud to call her that.”
About three weeks later Anya awoke to a back ache.It got worse as the morning drew on till she suddenly wet herself.She was mortified, though she’d gotten used the increased demands pregnancy put on her bladder.As she corralled Sally and set about cleaning herself up, labor pains began in earnest.Anya knew little about birth except what she’d seen from her step-mother and from life on the farm, but she knew she’d better get help.Joe and Little Joe were working in a far-off field, so she started a fire and loaded it with pine straw so it would make an impressive smoke to signal him home.Home in minutes, he found Anya with her pains regular and about twenty minutes apart.Hitching up the wagon and loading the children, he kissed Anya and warned her.“Stay in the cabin near the bed.I’ll be back with Emma quick as I can.Git up an’ walk if you have to, but don’t leave the cabin.”The horse trotted across the prairie, bouncing the kids Joe had taken time to tie in the wagon bed.Over the next two hours, Anya’s pain increased in frequency and intensity.Just as she feared the baby would come into the world unattended, Joe showed up with Emma.Within minutes, Emma handed a baby girl off to Joe, waiting behind her with a warmed blanket.“This baby ain’t big as a minute, but she’s purty like her mama.”
Joe held the baby close as his eyes filled with tears.Moments later, Emma took the child and helped Anya put her to the breast. He looked from the tiny girl to the woman he loved.“Our first baby. I ain’t never felt so fine. Thank you, Anya.”
Though Anya had initially invited Joe into her bed out of gratitude, over the next months she learned to love him passionately, looking forward to their time together in the rope bed. Neither of them had a lot to say, but the little family thrived. Sally had gone from toddling to running and was speaking in short sentences. Little Joe now called them “Ma” and “Pa,” likely forgetting the poor woman who’d born him. Anya was the only one Sally had ever called “Ma.”
Joe and Anya traded visits with Emma and Rufus a couple of times over the summer with Emma promising to attend her baby’s birth. Anya came to depend on her like a mother, taking comfort in her company, grateful she didn’t have to feel awkward about the timing of the upcoming birth. Emma never brought the subject up again, just reminded Anya to have Joe fetch her when he time came.
One Saturday evening Melvin came riding over to let them know he’d be marrying Jenny in a couple of weeks. Emma sent word they should come to the wedding. Joe told Melvin they’d try if Anya was up to it, but as soon as he was out of earshot, reminded Anya. “We got to lay low. It was night and the woman was bundled up against the cold, but that preacher might see you ain’t the woman I married. There ought’n to be no questions about you long as that preacher don’t git to nosin’ around. Nobody else was there for the marryin’. We’ll just say you ain’t well an’ keep to the house.” Joe didn’t think much of preachers and was rankled that this one stood between him and Anya.
It pained Anya to shun her friend’s joy, but knew they dared not risk discovery. She’d been lulled into a sense of general well-being with her life with Joe and pregnancy hormones. She had begun to look forward to the little one, hoping it would be a girl who looked like her own baby sister. Joe lay spooned against her at night, often stroking her belly in his sleep as he nuzzled her shoulder. Anya wouldn’t have changed anything about her life.
Joe looked around the small cabin the next morning. “We’re gonna be spllin’ out of this cabin soon. Next spring, I’m gonna put in a few acres of grain for a cash crop so we can add on a room an’ maybe get you a cook-stove. A woman that cooks like you ought’a have her a stove. Joe scooped Sally up and tickled her as she darted by in pursuit of her kitten.” Life was good.
Image of frontier woman in her kitchen pulled from internet.
“Are you havin’ more trouble?”
“I’m afraid it might come early.”
“Well, ain’t nothin’ to be done about that.Just don’t overdo yourself and maybe it will hold.”Emma reassured her.
“That’s not what I mean.I think I was carrying this baby when I come here.”Anya studied her lap.
“Well, Joe knowed you was a widow.You don’t look too far along.You been here long enough it might be Joe’s.”
“It ain’t.Joe ain’t never touched me.That’s why I ain’t told him about the baby.It cain’t be his.I wish I would just lose it!I don’t want to Joe to put me out over this baby.Our life is just starting to be good.”Anya cried softly.
“Anya.I know you a good woman the way you look after Joe and them young’uns.Joe is a good man.You are gonna have to talk to him about this.Times is real hard out here.They ain’t a town fer miles.Good folks don’t just happen by.You an’ Joe might have a chance.I ‘spect Joe’s already suspicions ‘bout that baby.I knowed you was in the family way the minute I seen you.Rufus saw it, too.The Lord has done joined you together and you don’t need to be parted, not without trying.You’re a’thinkin’ Joe ain’t gonna want you with this baby comin’. You’re a figurin’ you gonna lose him anyway.Joe’s a good man.Even if it turns out he don’t want you with this baby, you need to talk to him.He’s showed you kindness all this time.He ain’t gonna grind you under his foot like a snake even if he don’t want you.The two of you can figure out somethin’. Joe ain’t never had nobody to care about him before and that means a lot.”
Even if Emma was wrong, her kindness eased Anya’s fears.
“I just don’t want to put no more on Joe.” She explained.
“Then don’t leave his feelings out of this.Let’s get them dumplings started.The menfolk is gonna be hungry.”Emma was a good woman.
Anya just drank up Emma’s house as Emma showed her through.A bright oilcloth covered the kitchen table.Gingham curtains fluttered in the window.A cast-iron cook stove filled one corner of the kitchen and a few dish-lined shelves covered the walls over the cook table.A dishpan hung on one side of the stove and a few pots on the other.A can of flour and a bread board sat on the cook table.Doors opened off either side of the kitchen and rough stairs climbed to the attic opposite the stove.An apron hung on a nail, next to an embroidered drying towel.A water bucket and dipper stood on a shelf next to the back door.A cracked mirror in a frame hung there also, along with a comb on a string, concession to vanity. A clorful braided rag rug covered the rough board floor lending a cheery air to the bright kitchen.
“We got bedrooms opening off both sides of the kitchen.When Melvin got old enough, he slept in the attic.He moved downstairs after Marthy married.He’s courtin’ Jenny Parker, now, so I reckon they could be a weddin’ before too long.I always hoped we’d have to build more rooms fer a passel of younguns, but I guess the Good Lord thought two was a’plenty.We ain’t always had it so nice.Twenty-four years ago we started digging out a sod house when I was first a’carrying Martha.We ain’t been married long an’ didn’t have nothin’ but a start of seed, Rufus’s old gun, the clothes we stood up in, a few quilts, some old pots and crockery my ma spared me, an ax, shovel, plow and a mule and wagon Rufus’s pa set him up with. Our folks was mighty good to help us like that.They ain’t had much neither.We slept in the wagon fer a few weeks while we planted and Rufus dug sod.By July, it had dried out enough so we could frame up with poles Joe cut down by the creek.By that time Rufus had a good-sized hole dug and the sod had dried enough to stack.We set corner poles and got to stacking them soddy bricks.After we got high as I could reach on the north side, Rufus stacked the rest of the way up and I started the next wall.We took the wagon apart to frame up the door and build a tight door. Rufus sodded up a lean-to for the mule off the back wall of our soddy. I sure hated to see that old wagon go, but there weren’t no timber.We sodded the roof, and it was good enough to get us through a winter or two.
After our second crop come in, Joe come up with enough lumber to build a two-room cabin.I was sure proud.That soddy kept us out of the cold, but when it rained mud was always fallin’ in on us….and the bugs!We couldn’t keep them bugs out!A cabin is sure a comfort! He built the other bedroom I was carrying the still-born baby, but we didn’t need more room till Melvin come along.
That old soddy comes in handy as a root cellar now.Long as we keep plenty of dry straw on the floor and don’t let the taters, sweet taters, turnips, and apples from touchin’ they’ll keep till spring.I hang my onions and herbs on the rafters so they keep good.I make leather britches out of my green beans so we can have a taste of fresh all winter.A few years ago, Rufus brung me in some a’them canning jars an’ I been able to put up conserves when the fruit comes in.I was so proud, I ‘bout cried when I seen ‘em.Here, I want you to have this wild plum conserve I put up.It will go so good with your fine biscuits.”Emma was justly proud of her home and housekeeping.
Tears came to Anya’s eyes.“Oh Emma, this is the finest thing I’ve ever been given.I’ll make sure to git your jar safe back to you.”
“Oh no you won’t.It’s a weddin’ present.Every woman should have something fine from a friend.I am proud to be your first one here.”Emma hugged Anya to her with the warmth of a mother.“I’m sure praying you’ll carry this little one and be spared the sorrow I felt.”
“Emma, I am so worried about this baby.” Anya whispered.
Joe was up by four every morning, making sure the goats were milked and the stock tended before he headed over to Fred’s place every morning. The two nannies competed for the first spot on the milking block, eager to get at their corn. Pesky as goats were, It might be a good idea to keep them from now on. Between these two, he got a more than a gallon of milk a day, plenty for drinking, cooking, butter-making and even enough for Anya to make cheese. He should have gotten goats a long time ago. These two ate far less than the cow.
He worried leaving all the garden-work to Anya in her condition. Though they hadn’t talked about her pregnancy yet, he knew from the quiet of her manner she was troubled. He’d seen evidence of rape in the early days as he cared for her, and felt resignation as he noted her nausea and swelling breasts. Their fragile union was born of need on both parts. There had been no feeling beyond pity for her upon arrival. In the first days, he’d just hoped she’d stay to help with the children, but came to take pleasure in her tender care of Sally, her growing love for Little Joe, and the way she made the life they all brought to his lonesome cabin. After her hearing returned they’d begun talking a bit, he began to hope she’d soon warm to him, despite assertions she would leave. As her thin body began to swell with pregnancy, she was lovely. He began to look forward to a life with her and a houseful of children. After all, a baby was just a baby. Little Joe and Sally had brought so much love into his lonely life. What was one more?
He was going to have to bring this up with Anya. It occurred to him she might have avoided mentioning her pregnancy thinking he’d hold it against her. It was time to set her mind at ease. Maybe with this out of the way, they could get on with their lives.
Image of frontier woman in her kitchen pulled from internet.
Image of couple in farm wagon taken from google
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