A Northern Light(65)

"You're just weary, Min," I said, stroking her hand. "That's all."

She opened her eyes. "I don't know, Matt. It all seemed so exciting when we were sparking, and then just married, but it isn't now. Jim's always at me..."

"He's probably just worn down, too. It's hard work clearing—"

"Oh, don't be dense, Mattie! I mean at me. But I can't. I'm so sore down there. And I just can't have another baby. Not right after the twins. I can't go through it again. Mrs. Crego said that nursing will keep me from quickening, but it hurts so, I think I'll go crazy with the pain. I'm sorry, Matt ... I'm sorry I shouted at you. I'm glad you came ... I didn't want to tell you all these things ... I'm just so tired..."

"I know you are. You lie there for a minute and rest. Let me make the tea."

Within minutes Minnie had fallen asleep and the babies with her. I got busy. I boiled water and washed all the pots and pans and dishes. I boiled some more and set the dirty dishrags and aprons to soaking. I filled the big black washing kettle with water, threw in a pailful of dirty diapers I'd found in the kitchen, and started a fire under it in the backyard. It wouldn't reach a boil for some time, but at least she wouldn't have to haul the water. Then I scrubbed the table and swept the floor. I set the table, too, thinking the men would be back in for supper before long, and put my flowers in the middle of it. When I'd finished, the house looked and smelled much better, and I looked and smelled much worse. Then I heard wagon wheels at the bottom of the drive. I looked out the window and saw Royal. Already. He and Jim were talking, but he'd expect me momentarily. I'd never even had the chance to tell Minnie about him.

As I quickly patted my hair back into place, it hit me: Emily Dickinson was a damned sneaky genius.

Holing up in her father's house, never marrying, becoming a recluse—that had sounded like giving up to me, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed she fought by not fighting. And knowing her poems as I do, I would not put such underhanded behavior past her. Oh, maybe she was lonely at times, and cowed by her pa, but I bet at midnight, when the lights were out and her father was asleep, she went sliding down the banister and swinging from the chandelier. I bet she was just dizzy with freedom.

I have read almost a hundred of Emily's poems and memorized ten. Miss Wilcox says she wrote nearly eighteen hundred. I looked at my friend Minnie, sleeping still. A year ago she was a girl, like me, and we were in my mamma's kitchen giggling and fooling and throwing apple peels over our shoulders to see if they'd make the initial of our true loves. I couldn't even see that girl anymore. She was gone. And I knew in my bones that Emily Dickinson wouldn't have written even one poem if she'd had two howling babies, a husband bent on jamming another one into her, a house to run, a garden to tend, three cows to milk, twenty chickens to feed, and four hired hands to cook for.

I knew then why they didn't marry. Emily and Jane and Louisa. I knew and it scared me. I also knew what being lonely was and I didn't want to be lonely my whole life. I didn't want to give up my words. I didn't want to choose one over the other. Mark Twain didn't have to. Charles Dickens didn't. And John Milton didn't, either, though he might have made life easier for untold generations of schoolkids if he had.

Then Royal hollered for me and I had to wake Minnie to tell her good-bye. When I got outside, the afternoon was bright and sunny, and Royal took my hand as we rode to his brother's land, and he told me we would have land, too, and a house and cows and chickens and an old oak bureau his grandmother had promised him, and a pine bed, too. He said he had some money saved up, and I proudly told him I had ten dollars and sixty cents saved up between money I'd had before I went to the Glenmore and two weeks' wages (minus the four dollars I'd given Pa), and tips. He said that was almost enough to pay for a good stove. Or maybe a calf instead. He pleased himself so much just talking about these things that he smiled and put his arm around me. It was the nicest feeling. Lucky and safe. Like getting all your animals inside the barn just before a bad storm hits. I nestled against him and imagined what it would feel like to lie next to him in a pine bed in the dark, and suddenly nothing else seemed to matter.





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"Not another one, Weaver, damn it!" Cook shouted, slapping her spatula against the worktable.

"Sorry," Weaver said, bending down to pick up the pieces of the plate he'd just broken. The second one that morning. He'd also smashed a drinking glass.

"No, you're not. Not in the least," Cook said. "But you will be. Next thing you break is coming out of your wages. I've had it with you. Go down cellar and bring up some new plates. And don't you dare drop them."

It was Bill the dishwasher's day off and we all missed him terribly. We hadn't appreciated him enough. We never realized how quietly and graciously he went about his work. We did that morning, though, because Cook put Weaver—whose face was still as bruised and mottled as a piece of old fruit—on dishwashing duty and Weaver wasn't the least bit quiet or gracious about it. He muttered and grumbled, swore and complained.

Four whole days had elapsed since Mr. Sperry had put him on kitchen duty, long enough for most people to get their noses back in joint, but Weaver was still furious about it. Fran had tried to jolly him on several occasions and I'd tried to interest him in a few word duels, but neither of us had had any success.