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Hard Time Marrying Part 7

spring-beauty-splashHe checked on the woman and children several times always finding them asleep.  The children’s breathing was regular and less shallow.  The pink of their cheeks faded as the fever dropped.  Twice more he fed and diapered them and assisted the woman to the pot.  The next two days were much the same, more feeding, more dosing with Dr. Marvel, more changing, and always, more washing.  The little boy rallied first, trailing Joe.  From time to time, he called for Mama, but overall seemed contented.  Joe looked forward to the woman regaining her strength and assuming her responsibilities.  She was attentive to the baby girl who still lay abed with her.  Thankfully, the baby finally got hungry enough to accept the bottle after a few tries.  It made it easier to get the Dr. Marvel’s in her, anyway.  The woman could barely stay awake long enough to feed the baby but kept it at her side.  On the fourth day, the woman began to eat regular food, though she mashed it first.  One day, she coughed and spit a cracked molar into her palm, increasing Joe’s guilt about burying her alive, though he still didn’t remember hitting her with the shovel.  Joe had hopes when she’d learn some English soon, since he didn’t understand a word she said when she did speak to the baby or cry out in pain upon moving.  She had picked up on coffee, milk, baby, hurt, boy, pot, and a few other words, but there was no conversation yet.  She never called him “Joe.”

Though there was no real talking between, Joe sensed a change.  The woman was able to leave the bed for longer and longer periods, and kept the baby on her hip as she padded around the cabin. Her bruises were fading and she was able to hold the baby with her left arm and feed it with her right. She was turning out to be a beauty, but looked so young to be a mother.  It warmed him to see the tiny girl laugh at her mother, though the boy clearly preferred Joe.  Joe had expected him to show more interest in his mother once she was out of bed, but he didn’t.  Maybe boys just liked men. Joe rigged a rough rope bed in the corner near the fireplace for the boy, thinking he could make a trundle when the girl was older. He was starting to think of her as “Anna” instead of “the woman.”  Anna only referred to the girl as “Baby” and the boy as “Boy.”  One day, he brought her the first Spring Beauty and she called him “Joe.”  Joe was glad of her and the children, glad of the life opening up to him.

That night the coyotes woke him.

Hard Time Marrying Part 6

Minolta DSC

Minolta DSC

snakeoil The boy stirred. Joe almost wretched as he worked the floppy, little body from under the covers, soiling himself up to the elbows in a soup of feces, urine, and sweat. This was worse than a calf with the scours. He spread a towel on the floor near the hearth and went to work, bathing and diapering the little fellow before he could even think of feeding him.

The boy whimpered a bit, but by and large was unaware of his bath. Finally, clean, dry, and dressed in one of the gowns, Joe settled back in a chair to spoon him some milk doctored up with Dr. Marvel’s Wonder Tonic. Had Joe only realized it was mostly alcohol, he’d have dosed himself before starting the bath. The boy even roused enough to sip from a tin cup before lapsing back into sleep on the flannel-covered hay.

That job finished, Joe touched the woman’s shoulder. She sprang back screaming like he was a bear. She showed considerable spirit for a woman who’d so recently left the grave. Appalled at the bruises on her face and the cut over her eye, he dropped his eyes. Surely he hadn’t hit her with the shovel as he covered her grave. Stepping back, he gestured to the baby, holding his nose to show it needed bathing. He pointed to the boy lying asleep on the hay bed and to the bath supplies.

The woman clearly was humiliated at being befouled, pulling the cover back over herself. Joe had laid her bundle of clothes on the foot of the bed, figuring she’d want it first thing. She shooed him out. He gave her a few minutes out of consideration for her dignity before letting himself back in, finding her struggling to dress, her right arm useless. How could he have been that rough getting her to the grave?

Pained, he helped her into her dress, looking at her as little as possible. He helped her to the table, though it was clear she was repelled by his touch. Once she was seated, he poured her a cup of coffee, thick with cream and a healthy glug of Dr. Marvel. When he saw she was strong enough to manage, he turned his attention to the baby girl.

She was as warm and pink as her brother, crying out in protest at being stripped and bathed. Finally, warm, clean, and dry, he offered her to her mother to nurse. The woman looked at him as though he’d asked her to nurse a pig, gesturing the baby away. Realizing there was no choice, he poured some of the warm milk into the bottle and fed the baby himself. She wasn’t having any of it, pushing the nipple out of her mouth and howling. Looking to the mother for help, she shook her head as though it was no matter to her. The woman must be addled from the fever and the grave, he thought.

He was finally able to get enough milk into the baby to satisfy her, between the bottle and the cup. She was asleep before he laid her on the makeshift bed next to her brother. When he turned back to the battered woman, she was dozing in the straight chair. She jumped then moaned when he touched her shoulder, but allowed him to help her into the hay with the children.

That being done, he turned to the mess awaiting him. Building a fire under a tub outdoors, he set water to boiling. He’d never faced a pile of washing like this, only doing his a few times a year. He stripped of his dirty shirt, shaved some of the soap into the water, and got to work. Shaking out the worst of the soil, he plunged as many of the diapers and clothes into the tub as would fit and stirred them around with a stick until the mess was indistinguishable from the wash water. When he was satisfied he’d done all he could, he fished the laundry out of the malodorous soup and hung it on the fence, not bothering to rinse.  The bedding, done with fresh water and soap looked little better, but the entire  lot eventually achieved a universal stiffness as it dried, the soil having been mixed with soap and universally distributed.

Hard Time Marrying Part 5

baby-bottle

Though he considered himself unfit for human company, Jack and the barn cats didn’t concur and worked their way in next to Joe, slipping into the snug cocoon of the hay-covered saddle blanket and his heavy barn jacket.  The breathing and occasional stamping of the milk cow and the horses in their stalls eased him. This bit of his life was unmarred.  Comforted by the company of the beasts, he slipped into exhausted sleep.  Upon awakening to Ol’ Sal and her kittens purring, his spirits rose and he felt better about himself.  He lay in his nest enjoying their company till he turned to settle back in for a few more minutes.  Reaching up to feel slime in his hair, he found Ol’ Sal had rewarded him with the gift of a dead rat.  He sprang up, flinging the nasty rat, startling Jack and set the kittens to every way, his reverie ended. 

He dawdled as long as possible over the milking, spraying milk into the mouths of the dancing cats.  Rosie’s waiting calf lunged at her when he released them in to the feedlot. When the little heifer had gorged on her mother’s milk, Joe separated them, letting the cow out to graze.  Rosie ambled off without a care, leaving Baby Blossom bawling behind her. She’d be back lowing to be milked before sundown.  Joe chuckled thinking he must have looked a fool getting rid of that rat.  Tossing a clean towel over the milk, he passed out some hay and grain to the horses and opened the barn door to the corral, making sure the water troughs were full.  After tossing a few ears of corn and watering the hogs, he could no longer delay going back into the cabin.  If the kids had lived through the night, they’d need feeding, too.  If the sick woman couldn’t nurse the baby, he’d have to feed her using the bottle and some of that canned milk the town had provided before booting them all out of town.  The light was just breaking in the East on a cold, clear, windy West Texas day when he headed toward the house.

The fire was no more than embers. The small cabin reeked of urine, excrement, and fever.   He dreaded looking, but saw the boy lying to one side of the woman who’d turned to face the wall.  The child’s rapid breathing was shallow, snot crusted around his nostrils, his cheeks flaming pink.  There was no doubt about the scarlet fever.  He’d come uncovered and must have been near frozen in his sodden clothes.  Joe hastily covered him and turned to make up the fire before investigating further.  He’d have to get some food into the child and get him into a clean, warm bed to have any hope of saving the him.  He took care not to disturb the others as he heated water and looked for something to serve as clean bedding and clothes should the woman and girl be alive. Living alone, he’d never bothered with the niceties of bed-linens, settling for a simple straw-filled tick and a couple of quilts.  From the fetid smell, it was clear this one would have to be boiled and re-stuffed.  While the water heated, he brought a load of hay from the barn, along with his old barn coat and a couple of the cleaner burlap bags.  He pulled a couple of ancient quilts from a shelf, not even wondering what hand might have made them.  He’d often thought of tossing the ragged bedding, but was glad now his housekeeping had been lax.

In readiness for the tasks ahead of him, he opened the parcels, finding a baby bottle, four flannel gowns, a few cans of peaches,

some crackers, two bars of soap, in addition to several cans of milk, a bottle of Dr. Marvel’s Wonder Tonic, two rough towels, and the bolt of flannel.  In a moment of tenderness, someone had added a couple of peppermint sticks.  He warmed a pain of milk, poured some water into a wash pan, and laid out the towels and soap.  He tore off a few strips of flannel to use for diapers.  For now, that would have to do.

milk-label

 

 

Hard Time Marrying Part 4

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Bedded down in the barn, Joe couldn’t forget how cold the woman must have been in her shallow grave.  He’d meant to heap rocks over it to keep the coyotes out later, but would be spared that trouble now.  The ghastly thought of her clawing her way out flashed every time his eyes closed.

Giving up on sleep, he cursed himself for being fool enough think of marrying.  Ma had died when he was nine.  No mention was ever made of his pa. The gruff, old bar-owner let him sleep in the store room till his death three years later.  After that, Joe worked for his keep on a hard-scrabble ranch where a crotchety old rancher ran a few longhorn cows.  They never struck up a friendship, so Joe kept to himself the little time he wasn’t working or sleeping.  In the absence of friends or relatives, the old goat left the place to him.

At twenty-nine, Joe scratched out a spare living on his place neither happy nor unhappy.  His solitary life suited him till Peggy Bartlett caught his eye.  He didn’t normally mix with folks much, but he took meals with the family when he had a few days work with her pa. He never even spoke to her, but couldn’t forget her quick smile or soft hand on his shoulder as she leaned to fill his coffee cup.

Joe never even considered courting a woman, but on a whim, wrote out an inquiry for a wife upon seeing an advertisement in a newspaper.  He’d forgotten about the whole business when he received a response from Anna Meuller, offering herself for matrimony, in exchange for a ticket.  He wrote back, offering marriage, a ticket, and decent treatment.  The business contracted, the rest was history. What a fool he had been!  A man like him had no business trying to marry.

 

Hard Time Marrying Part 3

farm-wagonBy the time Joe pulled his mules to the door to unload his wagon, it was sleeting.  His life had never looked more hopeless as he brushed the icy hay from the tattered quilt covering the children’s burning faces.  Though it was unchristian, he’d half-hoped to find them already dead from the fever, solving the problem of their care.

He struggled to get them into the cold cabin where he heard the scurrying of a rat.  “Damn it all.  I got to bring the barn cat in.”

Laying them gently on his bed and covering them, he was able to rouse each enough to get a bit of water down.  Setting the cup to the side, he moved on to the fireplace to uncover the banked ashes, put a stick or two next to the backlog, rekindling the fire.  At least they wouldn’t die of thirst of cold.  It angered him to feel pity for them. That’s all he could do for them for the moment.

He hurried in with the provisions, the pathetic mercy the town had shown, leaving to get his horses tended, milk the cow and tend the stock.  Finishing his tasks, he miserably returned to the burden of the sick children fate had forced upon him.  Upon entering the cabin, the sight meeting his eyes nearly undid him.  A filthy, battered woman dressed in rags studied the little girl.  God in Heaven!  Would this nightmare never end? Had he buried the woman alive and now she’d scratched out of her grave?

Mutely, the woman clutched the child to her bosom protectively as though she thought he might put the two of them back in the grave.

“Oh my God.  I thought you were dead!”  This did nothing to set her at her ease.  Shamed, he turned his back mumbling.  “Poor wretch.  What she must be thinking?” Shame at having buried her, then trying to get rid of her sick children shamed him, bringing him lower than he’d ever been before.  I don’t know why I didn’t leave it alone when it was good enough.  He fled from the cabin and made his way to the barn, tossed some hay on a saddle blanket settled in to try to get some sleep.  Jack, his dog, and the barn cats settled in next to him, glad of the unexpected company.  He lay awake a long time, thinking of the girl who’d made him want a wife in the first place.

Hard Time Marrying

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Their union had a bleak start. Shivering miserably on the depot platform in the freezing rain, the woman folded and refolded his tattered letter.  Angered, he thought of driving on when he saw her cradling a small child and holding the hand of a grimy toddler, a few tattered bundles at her feet. In her letter, she’d not mentioned the  little ones, though with all fairness, the marriage was only one of need on both parts. He hadn’t promised her anything either, so after hesitating, he was mollified by the thought that the little fellows served as proof she wasn’t barren.  Hurriedly, married minutes later at the preacher’s house, he apologized for the weather as they shivered the two hours home in his open wagon and was surprised to learn the woman didn’t speak or understand English.  Maybe that wasn’t so bad for a man accustomed to his own company.

Burning with fever by the time they got to his homestead, his unknown wife was dead by the next sundown, leaving him with  little ones he had no taste for. Barely reaching his knee, they toddled mutely in perpetual soggy diapers, uttering gibberish only they understood. As soon as he could, he buried his quilt-wrapped wife and headed back to dusty Talphus, Texas to rid himself of burden of her orphaned little ones. The church or the town would have to do for them. Loading them in a snug in a bed of hay, wrapped in a ragged quilt, hay heaped over them. he pitied and grieved for them on the long trip back to town, knowing the hard life they faced. Stopping several times to make sure they were warmly covered, he was relieved to find them pink and warm.

He hardened his heart against them, knowing only too well the life they faced. He’d never known family, just been passed from hand to hand.  He grieved knowing that was their lot, but deception had landed them with him and a lone-farmer could hardly be expected to shoulder the brats of a deadwoman he’d never even shared a bed with.