Hidden Places (14 page)

My favorite teacher, Mr. Herman, knew how much I loved reading about Nellie and always gave me his
New York World
as soon as he was finished with it. I made a scrapbook of all her exploits and filled notebook after notebook with imaginary exploits of my own. When I wasn’t writing I was reading, devouring books as fast as Mr. Herman loaned them to me.

‘‘You’re my best student, Betty,’’ he told me one day after I’d finished reading
Sense and Sensibility
, ‘‘but I’m worried about how you will fare as a teacher. To be honest, you’re so tiny and softspoken that I’m afraid the students will mistake you for one of themselves.’’

It was his polite way of saying that I was absurdly short and painfully shy—and the rough-and-tumble farmers’ children were going to mop the floor with me.

‘‘I really don’t want to be a teacher, Mr. Herman,’’ I confessed. ‘‘It was my father’s idea. What I really want to be is a stunt reporter like Nellie Bly.’’

He thought for a moment before he replied. ‘‘That could be a difficult career, too, for someone as...as reserved as you are.’’ He might have added ‘‘innocent’’ or ‘‘nai
ve’’ or ‘‘scared of my own shadow.’’ While I loved reading about Nellie Bly’s exploits, the truth was that I would have fainted dead away if adventure had tapped me on the shoulder.

Mr. Herman must have seen my quivering chin and brimming eyes because he quickly added, ‘‘Don’t get me wrong. You’re a very gifted writer, Betty. I enjoy reading everything you write. Your work is head and shoulders above your classmates’ work. I’m just not sure that being an investigative reporter is right for you, either.’’

‘‘Sometimes I write poems,’’ I blurted.

He smiled gently. ‘‘Yes, I do see you more as an Elizabeth Barrett Browning than a Nellie Bly.’’

‘‘Would you like to read some of them?’’

‘‘I would be honored.’’

But I never had a chance to show my poems to him or to finish my studies or to become a teacher—let alone a stunt reporter. Mother took sick the year I turned eighteen, and Father made me quit school to take care of her and run his household. Lydia had a good job by then, working at the Deer Springs Dry Goods store, and Father didn’t want to give up the paycheck she brought home to him every week.

I don’t think Lydia actually did much work at the store. The owner simply parked her behind the counter and told her to smile, and the competing store across town just about went out of business. Every salesman and farmer’s son who walked through the door instantly fell in love with her and would start buying whatever she was selling. Give Lydia two dozen umbrellas on a sunny day and they’d be sold out by noon. She was the store’s most valuable asset, and they knew it.

I didn’t mind staying home to care for Mother. She liked me to read aloud to her when she was awake and I had time for my own writing projects while she slept—after the cooking and the housework and the laundry were done, of course.

Sometimes I got lonely, but Lydia kept me amused each night with hilarious tales of all the latest gossip in Deer Springs. She could describe selling a yard of cloth to crabby old Myrtle Barstow and have me holding my sides with laughter. Then she would ask, ‘‘Did you write any poems today, Betsy? You have to read me one of your poems.’’ Lydia always encouraged me in my writing career.

Most of my poetry described my very limited world—the orchard as it changed with the seasons, the bluebirds and chipmunks feeding on the seeds I scattered for them, the doe and her two fawns drinking from our pond in the evening. But one day Lydia copied two of my poems in her beautiful handwriting and convinced me to mail them to a magazine.

‘‘I swear, if you don’t send them, I will!’’ she said, stomping her foot for emphasis. Lydia worked in the real world every day and had learned to pepper her conversation with scandalous phrases like ‘‘I swear’’ and ‘‘holy smokes.’’

When I finally gave in, she helped me compose a cover letter that sounded as confident and poised as Lydia always did, not meek and apologetic, which was my typical manner. We linked our pinkies for good luck and sent my poems off. Much to my surprise,
Garden Magazine
published one of them and asked me to send more. Lydia and I danced and cried and hugged each other in joy. My payment was only two free copies of the magazine, but I didn’t care. It thrilled me just to see my name—my poems!—in print for the first time.

The next day Lydia brought home the weekly
Deer Springs News
. She had smiled at the newsboy and he’d given it to her for free.

‘‘Here, this is for you,’’ she told me. ‘‘You
must
write something for the newspaper.’’ I handed it right back to her.

‘‘I can’t write anything for the
News
! How can I be an investigative reporter when I’m stuck way out here in a farmhouse all day? I can see the headlines now: ‘Scandal Exposed in Fowler’s Chicken Coop’ or maybe ‘Big Brouhaha in Betty’s Barn.’ ’’

‘‘Write a letter to the editor, Betsy. Didn’t you tell me that’s how Nellie Bly got her start?’’

Lydia was right. According to the story, Nellie had read a column in the
Pittsburgh Dispatch
stating that women were totally use-less for anything outside of marriage. Outraged, Nellie wrote a scathing reply that so amused the
Dispatch
’s editor that he offered her a job.

‘‘There isn’t anything in the
Deer Springs News
that’s worthy of an outraged response,’’ I sighed after reading it from front to back. ‘‘And even if there was, the editor doesn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor. I doubt that he would be amused by me.’’

Against my feeble protests, Lydia chose a short piece I’d written about springtime in an apple orchard and sent it to the editor. We were both thrilled when the newspaper paid me $1.75 for it— my very first paycheck. With our pinkie fingers raised in celebration, I treated Lydia to an ice-cream sundae at the soda fountain in town. Lydia’s smile mesmerized the young man behind the counter and he gave us both double scoops for the price of a single.

Mother never recovered from her illness. After lying bedridden for almost two years, she died the year I turned twenty. By then my father’s health had also started to decline, and at the age of sixty-three, he found it harder and harder to keep up with the farm work. Faced with his own mortality, he recognized his duty to secure a future for Lydia and me. He came up with a plan that most dime novels would call ‘‘nefarious.’’

I was halfheartedly kneading bread dough in the kitchen with
A Tale of Two Cities
propped against the flour canister one morning in May when Frank Wyatt arrived to see my father. I knew very little about Frank except that he was a deacon at our church, a bachelor, and about eight or nine years older than me. His forefathers had been the community’s earliest settlers, farming the land that bordered our acreage on the north side. Frank had inherited his father’s entire estate and was slowly buying up all the property he could get his hands on, building Wyatt Orchards into a kingdom with himself as the king.

‘‘Betty, get in here!’’ my father suddenly called from the parlor. He had a voice that made you drop everything and run, whether you had flour on your hands or not. Frank Wyatt rose from his chair like a gentleman when I entered the room, even though he wore overalls.

‘‘Good morning, Miss Fowler,’’ he said, bowing slightly. Frank was very attractive in a rugged, austere sort of way, with a cleft in his granite chin, hair like pale winter sunshine, and eyes the color of a glacial stream. His movements were stiff, as if he was ill-at-ease in his own broad-shouldered body, and whether sitting or standing, Frank always looked as though he was posing for a photograph. The expression on his stern, unsmiling face when he passed me the collection plate on Sunday always made me feel so miserly I wanted to dump the entire contents of my purse into the basket. But Frank Wyatt had such a spotless reputation in the church and in the community that God might have chiseled him out of the same hunk of stone as the Ten Commandments.

‘‘Bring us some coffee,’’ my father ordered.

‘‘Please don’t trouble yourself, Mr. Fowler,’’ Frank said, spreading his massive hands. ‘‘I can’t stay long. I just dropped by to see how you were doing. The pastor announced in church last Sunday that you were ill again—’’

‘‘Not that it’s any of
his
business,’’ Father said with a grunt.

‘‘And so I wondered if you could use some help. I have a crew coming to my place later this week and—’’

‘‘You don’t fool me with your cool manners,’’ Father said, interrupting him. ‘‘You’ve been hovering around here ever since you heard I took sick last winter. You’re still looking to get your hands on my property, aren’t you?’’ My father’s response to Mr. Wyatt’s kind offer was so rude that I turned to escape into the kitchen. ‘‘Betty, get back in here and sit down,’’ Father shouted. ‘‘I want you to hear what I have to say, too.’’

I did as Father commanded. I sat, staring at Frank Wyatt’s scuffed work boots, my cheeks burning.

‘‘It’s my pond you’re after, right?’’ Father asked him.

‘‘Your pond is the envy of every farmer around here, Mr. Fowler, and—’’ ‘‘Last winter you offered to buy my land if I ever wanted to sell it, remember?’’

‘‘Yes, sir.’’

‘‘Still interested?’’

I glanced up at Frank. He was practically salivating with anticipation. He battled to hide his excitement behind a calm facade. ‘‘I feel it’s my Christian duty to help others in their time of need. That’s the only reason I’m here, sir. Nevertheless, my offer still stands should you decide to sell.’’

‘‘As a matter of fact I
don’t
want to sell. I didn’t work hard all these years to build this place up just so I could sell it off to strangers someday. I worked so that my children and grandchildren would have something to inherit when I’m gone. Now, I’ve put a lot of labor into my land. Unfortunately, the Almighty only saw fit to give me daughters. So here’s my decision. I’m deeding everything to my daughter Betty here, for a wedding gift. If you want my land, you’ll have to marry her.’’

I don’t know which was greater—my absolute horror or my utter humiliation. How could Father offer his own daughter as part of a package deal, as if I were a prize-winning farm animal or a new plow? How unfair to force Mr. Wyatt to decide if he wanted our land badly enough to marry me as part of the bargain. I knew how Leah, the ugly older sister in the Bible, must have felt listening to scheming Jacob and cheating Laban haggle over her. It took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to burst into tears or to run from the room.

But if my father’s blunt offer repulsed Frank, he never showed it. ‘‘You’re much too generous, Mr. Fowler,’’ he said smoothly. ‘‘Any man in Deer Springs would be honored to marry a fine Christian woman like your daughter, even if she had no land at all.’’

I felt a rush of gratitude toward him for taking some of the sting out of my father’s words, even if it was pure poppycock. Every man in Deer Springs longed to marry Lydia, not me.

My father stood, a signal that the bargaining had ended. ‘‘Now you know the way it is, Wyatt,’’ he said with a frown. ‘‘If you’re interested, you can begin with a proper courtship. You have permission to call on my daughter.’’

‘‘Thank you,’’ Frank said, rising as well. He hesitated a moment, as if mulling something over in his mind. ‘‘I believe there is an ice-cream social at church next Saturday afternoon. I would be pleased if you would accompany me, Miss Fowler.’’ I managed to nod but couldn’t bring myself to look at him. ‘‘Good. I’ll stop by for you around two o’clock.’’

He said good-bye then, leaving me alone with my father. I felt desolate, bereaved. I couldn’t seem to move from my chair. ‘‘Mr. Wyatt doesn’t want to marry me,’’ I whimpered.

‘‘Nonsense. He wants our land. He’s a hard-working man. He’ll make a good son-in-law.’’ Father had analyzed the situation in terms of himself. He’d never questioned what my wishes or dreams might be. I felt trapped.

‘‘But...but what if I don’t want to marry him?’’

‘‘You’ll do as you’re told,’’ my father said. ‘‘I know what’s best for you—understand?’’ The tears I had struggled to hold back began rolling down my cheeks. Father didn’t seem to notice my misery as he savored his triumph. ‘‘Young Wyatt has always coveted my property, but what he doesn’t realize is that I’ve coveted Wyatt Orchards just as much. He thinks he’s getting my land, but he’s forgetting that I’m also getting his. My grandson will own Wyatt Orchards someday. I’ll insist that he renames it Wyatt &Fowler Orchards.’’

‘‘I’m sure Mr. Wyatt would much rather marry Lydia than me,’’ I said, wiping my eyes. ‘‘Maybe you should give him a choice, Father.’’

‘‘Lydia!’’ he said in surprise. ‘‘She won’t have any trouble finding a husband or getting on in life. This way I’ll make sure that you’re married off, too—and married well.’’

I felt torn between wanting to please my father to finally win his love and approval after all these years and with longing to run away from this terrifying arrangement and applying for a job as a reporter in some big city. In spite of my limited writing success, I had no self-confidence at all. I was terrified of the unknown—of marriage as well as of life alone in a strange city. I poured out all my woe to Lydia in our bedroom that night.