Life in a Casket Page 2

  Mr. Davenport, not knowing where to set his hat, finally placed the article upon his head before lifting an end of the trunk as an assay. He concluded he would take my tack and drag it along the muddy pine. We reached the door to my living quarters and he put his hand to the latch.

  You can imagine my discomfort. I told him sternly, “You may leave it here, sir.” I gave him a cold, curt bow.

  He looked a bit dumbfounded, then let the end of the trunk drop to the floor with a bang.

  “Where you hail from?” He asked as he shook the numbness out of his right hand.

  He obviously had not read True Politeness, although I should not fault him totally, as it was composed as a book of manners for ladies. Nevertheless, in his lifetime he should have dealt with women versed in the literature. True Politeness is ten years in print and widely distributed, more so than the Nebraska Advertiser, and it clearly states that ‘if a lady wishes to rid herself of any one’s society,’ which definitely includes men of the frontier, ‘a cold bow is the best mode to adopt.’ Now I cite this from memory, for I do not have the booklet in hand, but I do and did distinctly remember those very words: ‘a cold bow.’ It should have done the trick.

  “You’re from back East I suspect, one of them Yankees no doubt.”

  “Ohio. I went to school in Oberlin.”

  After I said this there was something odd about the way he looked at me. His head turned on me quick like, something akin to a chicken spotting a bug on a white fence board. He didn’t say anything for a moment. Finally he clucked “Tsk, tsk.” Then added awkwardly, “That’s far off.”

  “If you’re walking,” I answered.

  “Well,” he said abruptly, “I’m going to search out some farmland. You take care Miss Adeline.” I do have to give him credit for tipping his hat as he departed, but there was much work to do if a woman ever wanted to take such a man as Mr. Davenport under her care.

  I entered my boudoir and looked around. I don’t know if the Spartans ever had a boudoir, but if they did this would have been its direct descendant. There was a thin little game table with barely enough room for an oil lamp that hadn’t much fuel in it. I suppose guests had to supply their own. The bed was barely wide enough for one and a half occupants, but it had an inviting wool mattress. I was expecting straw. There was no dresser. I would live out of my trunk because I did bring more than just books. I did not complain; lodging was hard to come by given the influx of immigrants. Two families were living in a livery stable and single men had set up tents. The hotel, of course, gave precedence to single women.

  I was to share my room with another young lady. I feared that I would be saddled with a hardened frontier woman, not unlike the one Mr. Gallaway had conjured up in my mind: one who would wear her husband’s soiled, torn, and discarded cambric shirt for a nightie.

  Miss Katherine Sturwell, my roommate, came in shortly after Mr. Davenport left. Upon introduction, she encouraged me to address her as Kitty, a nickname she’d picked up as a little girl because she used to curl up on the sewing rocker and fall asleep purring. That was a direct quote from her parents, “purring.” One might translate it as “snoring,” I deduced after spending a few nights with her.

  Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised to note that Kitty failed to measure up to the woman of my imagination, the one who wore the cambric shirt. Indeed, Kitty proved to be a young lady with a taste in apparel that betrayed an acute sense of fashion; and it was in conversing with her that I began to perceive that not all the townsfolk were of the same caliber as the crowd of frontiersmen I’d rubbed shoulders with on the Admiral. Kitty could read, write, and talk intelligently about music; and I was later to discover that many of the women who planned on sending down roots along the muddy streets of Brownville had stature and bearing that commanded respect.

  Supper came early in the hotel and we feasted on mackerel. The guests were lined up either side of a long table and seated upon equally long benches. The conversation was lively with all wanting to know everything about everyone else: where they were from; if they knew so-and-so from Ohio or Kentucky or wherever; whether they came overland or aboard a steamer; where there was cheap land to be had or claimed. Soon we were a close-knit family, or nearly so.

  Back in our room, Kitty confided in me things that only a sister should hear. Her fiancé Stewart was expected from Saint Louis this coming weekend and she hoped to impress him.

  “Why should you want to win the heart of your fiancé?” I asked. It seemed like beating a dead horse to me.

  “Well,” she said sorrowfully, her eyes cast downward just a bit. “There’s lots of other girls back there in Saint Louis and he associates with the snobbery in his business. He’s a banker, an investor in land if you will.”

  “You mean he speculates.”

  “Whatever it’s called. I don’t know much about it. But his mother confided in me that he was coming to Brownville with an eye to buying up property. I wanted to surprise him by coming out first, without him knowing. I’ll meet him at the wharf. I’ll give him a little welcome gift and make him feel at home. If he wants to settle down here that’ll be fine with me.”

  “How long has he been courting you?” I asked with an unfortunate hint of skepticism in my voice that I just could not squelch.

  “Oh, I’ve known him for over a year now. I met him at a ball and he danced a cotillion with me.”

  I had to ask, but it troubled me to do so: “And what things have you done since? Besides dancing.”

  “We see each other at church. I found out he was a Methodist and I go there now. He makes a point of greeting me every Sunday. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “And you say he doesn’t know you’re here, do you? I’m sure it will be quite the surprise.”

  “Oh, yes,” she exclaimed as she fell back on the bed dreamily. “He’s given me his white gloves, the ones he wore when we first danced. He said to me, ‘Keep these close to your heart, think of me holding you, and when you’re ready, show them to me, how you’ve treasured them and therefore me, and I will be yours forever.’”

  Rather a longwinded gentleman, I thought, but I was now more comfortable about their relationship.

  She sat back up on the edge of the bed, untied her carpet bag, extracted a jewelry casket, and opened it. In it lay the whitest pair of dancing gloves I’ve ever seen. She lifted them up carefully, as if playing a game of pick-up-sticks. With closed eyes she pressed them to her bosom. “They’re like the hands of an angel,” she murmured. “I’m ready for his proposal. We can live here amid the wilds because we’ll have each other.” Then she reverently laid the gloves to rest in their little casket.

  ***

  That night on the wool mattress constituted the best night’s sleep I’ve ever known. Kitty’s purring didn’t rouse me till the sun had been brightening Brownville for an hour or more. I would never speak poorly of the Nebraska House again.

  As soon as I had freshened up a bit, donned my yellow calico, visited the privy, and had breakfast, I strolled along the wharf up to Main Street, turned west away from the river, and when I reached First Street, I pointed my toes southward again, and if I had ventured all the way to Water Street and turned east, I would have made a full circle, but I stopped at Miss Mary Turner’s millinery shop.

  In the window of the store I caught sight of a yellow bonnet that would top off my dress nicely, and as the sun was beginning to shine with enthusiasm and only promised to do more of the same in the months to come, I entered. Bonnets adorned the walls left and right and echeloned bolts of cloth on rollers occupied the back of the store.

  Mary was standing off to the side and fitting a dress to a handsome woman, who had survived the forty year mark. So focused in her work, the pretty little milliner hadn’t noticed my presence until she reached out to pluck a pin from the cushion laying atop
a little square table beside her.

  “Addy!” she exclaimed. This outburst made the dignified lady wiggle just enough for a pin in the dress to make its way into her flesh. She added her own exclamation.

  “So sorry, Mrs. Thompson. This is Miss Adeline Furlough, a childhood friend.”

  It was good to see a known face and we gave each other a polite, but heartfelt hug. “I know it’s a surprise,” I said. “I wrote that I would come in June, but by April I could wait no longer. I’m just so anxious to make my way in the world.”

  “Where are you staying? I wish you could stay with me, but as I told you, I’m boarding down the street.”

  “No worry, I’ll be at the Nebraska House until I get my bearings.”

  “Are you going to teach?” she asked hopefully.

  “I don’t plan on it. I don’t want to be dependent upon the purse strings of parents who are investing their savings in prairie sod or trackless timber. I’ll think of something. My father’s given me an advance on my inheritance. ‘The Prodigal Daughter,’ he calls me. But I don’t plan on eating swill with the hogs just yet. I’ve got to spend it all first.”

  Mary laughed, and after she finished with Mrs. Thompson and bid her adieu, she turned the sign on the front door to CLOSED, and the two of us settled down to a long conversation of remembrances. I updated her on all the neighbors back home, those who had passed on to a better world and those who had decided to change their situation for the better in this one. She drank up all the news.

  Mary was most attentive to what my family had been up to, Mama and her societies, Papa and his work on the railroad. That’s where Papa made his real money. He was a foreman for the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad, and quite good at his job. He had this innate creative ingenuity that permitted him to out-think obstacles in a way others would not envisage. I like to believe that this creative genius runs thick in our blood.

  It was with his winnings from the railroad, and investments therein, that Papa bought our family’s farm. His profits also allowed him to be rather liberal toward me, when I told him of my aspirations for heading west. His enthusiasm for my temerity, however, was born of a forlorn hope that, by moving west into Indian country, or nearly so, I might find his long-lost sister. He had such a depth of feeling for this pretty little redhead companion of his childhood, who had been lost to the Indians long ago, that he was willing to believe she still breathed and moved somewhere beyond the confines of civilization.

  On their own, Grandpa and Papa ventured several times out into the wilderness to locate my little aunt, but had no good fortune. They gave up the hunt when they learned she had been traded westward, probably to Indians living along the Missouri River. The Army promised to keep a lookout for her, but Papa claimed they never bothered to look beyond the comfort of their fort. “Should have been easy to spot a redhead amongst Redskins,” he said more than once. He liked the alliteration. Her disappearance, though, made Grandpa’s hair turn white within a month, and left a wound in my father’s heart that never healed.

  Somehow, Papa was convinced that if one of us, meaning me at present, just lived out on the frontier long enough, little Aunt Adeline, my namesake, would be found. Knowing the rascaliness of older brothers, it’s hard to imagine a boy having such enduring fondness for a little sister, but this would be a shortsighted evaluation of fraternal teasing and pestering. When I was but ten years old, I believed that my brother Jerome absolutely despised me until Zachariah Thrumbrill, who was a year older than I, and the secret object of my girlish affections, came up from behind me after church and tugged on my braids. “Giddy up,” he shouted. Then he said “Whoa! Addy,” and yanked so hard on my hair that I fell over backwards.

  I had tears in my eyes, and to this day I don’t know if it was because I hurt so bad or because I was so mad at him. How could my beloved treat me so ill? When I got up, I saw my brother Jerome coming upon Zachariah with clenched fists and a look on his face told me I needed to put away my anger and act fast. So I walloped Zachariah as hard as I could in the stomach, and it took the wind clean out of him and made him double over.

  I’m embarrassed to admit such unladylike conduct, but I really feared for dear Zachariah’s life, and thought this the only remedy. And I was right, because when Jerome saw what I did, he stopped in his tracks, and the broadest smile ever evidenced upon the lips of an older brother took possession of his entire face. “That’a way to teach him, Addy,” he said, and he lifted me up on his shoulder and carried me home like I was Caesar in a Roman Triumph. “You’ll learn to leave my Addy alone.” Those were his parting words to poor Zachariah.

  It brings tears to my eyes yet today to remember the love of an older brother. And Zachariah was ever so polite to me after that. Perhaps that’s when God gave me the notion to be a civilizing source of inspiration in society.

  All this to say that I understand Papa, and I do believe the dream of Papa’s life is to hold his little sis once more in his arms before he leaves this difficult world. And I myself am not without compassion, so I was willing to join his dream to my own and be his picket man out in Nebraska Territory, perhaps his scout and detective if it comes to that, because I love to untangle knots and solve problems. Papa has confidence in me for such things too, and this is why, before my departure, he entrusted to me his locket containing a portrait of his little sister, with her name engraved underneath.

  I should add, as a post scriptum to the description of my father, that Papa is much more adept at laying down rails for a locomotive than splitting rails for a fence, or building barns, or seeing a crop through to harvest. My five brothers, from the eldest, Jerome, to the youngest, Teddy, made up for any of his deficiencies in the farming department. Concerning these brothers of mine, Mary did inquire particularly about little Teddy because she had heard in a correspondence with a mutual neighbor that the youngest family member might venture west some day. I confirmed this piece of intelligence and then recounted the plans of all my other brothers.

  In spite of the nostalgia I conjured up in Mary, for times gone by and for civilization, she still seemed very happy with her trade, with her new life in the territory. I don’t think she’ll be returning to Ohio.

  ***

  I left Mary’s shop well after two hours of healthy and inspiring gossip and felt good about the world. Friendship brings out the best of the past and allows us to look at the future with an indulgent eye. I retraced my steps to Main Street to walk down the frontier’s version of the Champs-Élysées.

  “I see you’ve got yourself a new bonnet,” came a voice from behind. It was Mr. Gallaway. I wasn’t going to let him spoil my sunshine, but it is true that my vision of Paris evaporated.

  “I do, and it makes my head light with its color.”

  He sidled up beside me and kept pace. “Your head doesn’t need anything to brighten it up,” he said. He looked at my profile as I walked and I couldn’t keep a smile from winning over my face. “You’re not ordinary are you Miss?”

  “Why . . . what do you mean by that?”

  “I mean you carry books to the frontier. Are you schooled?”

  “I know how to spell Oberlin if that’s what you mean.”

  He lifted his hat and scratched his head, so I helped him out. “I know how to spell it because that’s where I went to college.”

  He halted in midstep, which compelled me to do the same. “Miss,” he said solemnly as he looked about. “I wouldn’t advertise that if I were you. You haven’t told anyone as of yet, have you?”

  “I’ve kept it under my bonnet, only I’ve told a Mr. Davenport, and Mr. Furnas.”

  “I don’t know if I would entrust anything to that Davenport fellow, and you do know Mr. Furnas is the editor of the Nebraska Advertiser, don’t you?”

  “Sure enough, but I don’t see why that should make the news and
I wouldn’t mind if it did.”

  He looked very grave and contemplative, like a toddler who’s been asked to give up his peppermint stick. “Miss Furlough, we’ve heard of Oberlin in these parts. And personally I approve, but we’re next to Missouri here and there’s folks in this town that are of Southern persuasion. That includes our founder, Richard Brown.”

  I crossed my arms. I didn’t like being threatened, even if out of concern rather than of disapproval. “We of Oberlin are not fearful for our health on account of our position on the slavery question. We’ll help as many fugitives as we please . . . “

  “Shhhh, shhhh,” he hissed, as he looked around again. “You may be a lady, but that doesn’t excuse everything.” He cast his eyes up toward the heavens to think a bit, then he asked, “What are you doing here anyway?”

  “I’m going to make my mark on the world,” I said triumphantly.

  “You got somebody to stake a claim for you?”

  “No, I’m going to start a business like Miss Turner, but it’ll have to be a different one.”

  “She does mostly hats. You gonna do shoes?”

  “No . . .” As I looked around, I espied Mr. Furnas emerging from Second Street, where he had his business. “I’m going to start a newspaper.”

  “Oh? And what are you going to write about? We already have one.”

  “I’ll write just the opposite of whatever Mr. Furnas is printing, as long as I can find a reason for believing in it.”

  A breeze from the east gently stirred the air and Mr. Gallaway sniffed the atmosphere, reminding me of a cat catching scent of a mouse. “Might rain,” he observed. Then he made me an offer. “I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine who might help you navigate. It can be rough seas around here considering what’s going on in Kansas nowadays. You know, the violence over this slavery issue.