The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton (5 page)

The first time I stepped into the river, I was just about the age of the girl across the cabin from me, twelve. I had taught myself to swim that summer, by spying on the boys and mimicking their actions. My mother thought I was visiting Beatrice, who thought I was visiting Alice, who thought I was at home. That first time I stepped into the river, I was royally self-assured, until I took two strokes and felt the continental power of the brown water seize me and drag me from shore. Two strokes turned into a spluttering ten by the time my feet found the bottom again. But seven years later, when I was nineteen, I knew parts of the river very well, and I knew how to use and relish the six-miles-per-hour push of the water, to go down and over, down and over, how to not be afraid, and to not even attempt a swim unless the river was low and its tributaries more or less dried up. I knew how to hold my breath and dive, how to keep an eye out for logs and debris. I knew that some of the boys swam the river all summer. I knew that there was a drowning when I was fourteen and a drowning the summer I was seventeen. I knew that every man on the river chased the boys back from the big water but that the boys flocked there even so, building rafts, stealing boats, catching catfish and suckers. You couldn’t stay away from the river; at least I couldn’t.

The notion to swim across it came over me suddenly, mostly because that August the river was lower than it had been in years. All sorts of sandbars and islands were dry ground that no one had ever seen before. Even so, the Quincy bluff always made the river faster and deeper than it was farther downstream or upstream. The choice was narrow but fast, or wide and not as fast. But I can’t say I really made a choice. It was like going off with Mr. Newton. One day I knew I was going to do it, and two days later, when Frank got a boat, I did it. The whole time we were rowing across, I was feeling the push of the river against the boat, feeling it try to turn us around or turn us over. Every time we took a boat it was that way, and you could lose a boat in the Mississippi in a second. I knew that. But you always learn things a new way when you’ve got a reason to pay attention. That’s what I told Frank.

By the time I got to the cove, I was ready to forget the whole thing, but Frank was concentrated on it, and I had the feeling that I was going along with him, even though this was my idea. And then I didn’t want him to see me in my shift—I could just hear Harriet on that subject—and so I got in the water, and then I had to take a few strokes just to stay above water, and then Frank was rowing alongside me, and laughing and cursing. He didn’t smoke seegars then, but he had some twig or something he was chewing on, and I concentrated on that. He rowed upstream of me and used his oars to push snags and trash out of my way. I went slowly, knowing my waterlogged shift was dragging me down. The river kept piling up, too, and pouring over my head, but I was a good enough swimmer so that I saw it coming and didn’t take any in. It stank of fish and other, rotten things, but that was just river smell. It was water, a lot of water, warm, and I was drawn to that. I can’t say anything happened. Frank later said there were a couple of logs heading my way that he pushed off, but I had no sense of danger, only the water all around me—its sound and smell and wetness. It seemed to last a long time, and when my feet set down in the Quincy mud, I seemed to wake up. I’d swum the three-quarter-mile-wide river in about a mile and a half—you can’t swim right across it—and I walked out in my shift with the water streaming down and I forgot completely about where I was or what I was doing. Frank had to pull the boat up and then wrap a sheet around me. I think I staggered around, but then, a few minutes later, I felt the heat of the sun. That made me come back to who I was and where I was. I dried off and put my clothes back on, but I smelled of the river. The strongest soap couldn’t get that out of my hair in less than a week.

Roland Brereton thought it was a d— good joke. My sisters, of course, were flabbergasted, but they didn’t start in with me. I later decided that it was such a strange thing for me to do that they made up their minds that I hadn’t done it. I didn’t try it again. I wanted to savor the one time, and the summer was coming to an end, anyway. This year, the steamboat-men were all happy, because the river started high and stayed high, and only a young boy or a fool would brave it.

The two gray-haired dames now put away their needles. One of them had out her pocket watch, a man’s gold one, with a cover. She nodded to the other and said, "They’ll be serving in five minutes, Annabelle. We’d best get ready."

At this, the younger woman nudged her little girl, and all four went to the door of the ladies’ cabin, opened it, and peered out onto the deck. The one named Annabelle turned to me and spoke. "Now, have you ever been on one of these packets before, my dear?"

"No, ma’am. This is my first trip away from Quincy."

"Well, if you expect to have your dinner, then you’d better get ready for when the doors open, or the menfolk will push you right out of the way. The ladies are supposed to go to the head of the line, but you can’t be sure what will happen."

"I’m sure my husband ..." I said the word as if I were used to it.

"Oh, dear," said the other one. "You can’t rely on him. We five will all go out in a body and into the dining room, and they’ll make way for us. That’s the best way."

"They don’t mean to," said Annabelle, "but there’s just such a rush for the vittles that a lone woman don’t stand much of a chance. Wouldn’t you say so, Dorothea?"

Dorothea nodded, and the little girl pressed into her mother’s skirts. Annabelle said, "What’s your name, dear?" to me, and I said, "Lidie. Lidie Newton now."

"Here we go," said Dorothea. "Take each other’s arms, ladies, that’s the best. If your skirts drag a little, so be it." We took each other’s arms, with the little girl clinging to her mother’s waist, and we pressed as a group out onto the deck, just as the door to the dining room opened. All around us, male figures in black coats and hats and boots jumped up, but Dorothea and Annabelle smiled, stared straight ahead, and strode forward at a brisk clip. We others stuck to them, and the men fell back around us. We nearly gained the door. Only then was there a little pushing and shoving, but we kept smiling, and Annabelle lifted her voice in firm command: "Mind the ladies! Mind the ladies!" In a moment we were through. Annabelle and Dorothea shepherded us to a place at the long table, somewhat back from the entry, where I noticed that the dishes were quite plentiful. I looked around for Mr. Newton, but he hadn’t made it in yet. I was wondering whether to wait for him, when Dorothea said, "Sit down, Mrs. Newton. Sit down and eat, or you’ll not get a thing!" And it was true; all around us, men were jerking out the chairs, throwing themselves down, and ladling all manner of comestibles onto their plates, one thing on top of another. I sat down.

Near me was some bread, some salt pork, some pickles, another meat dish of some kind, some boiled potatoes, a dish of applesauce, and some johnnycake. I did as the others did and piled it all on my plate, taking as much as I was likely to want, because already the dishes and bowls were beginning to empty. Down the table I saw a dish of sliced cucumber in vinegar, which I liked very much, but there was no one to pass it, and even as I watched, wondering how to get some, a boy about Frank’s age served himself almost every slice on the plate. I started to eat what I had. What noise there was in the room was entirely made up of the clatter of china and utensils, the scraping of chairs, the moist sound of mastication, the rustle of wool and calico. There were some twenty people in the room, and at last I espied Mr. Newton, at the far end of the table, looking around for me. He had a slice of ham on his plate, and that was it. As he was reaching for some bread, the man next to him took the last piece right out from under his fingertips. "Eat! Eat!" exclaimed Annabelle. "The porters will take your plate away!"

I did as I was told and found myself doing what all the others were doing: shoveling my victuals in by the forkful, hardly chewing, and certainly not enjoying myself. Before I was half done, the men around us began to wipe their plates with their corn bread, push back their chairs, and leave the table. Mr. Newton caught sight of me and raised his hand with a smile, and I thought that it was a fine thing after all to see him from a distance. He had a grace and a reserve that the men around him had none of. At Saint Louis, our plan was to stay one night at a hotel near the landing, called the Vandeventer House. As I looked at my new husband, my spirits lifted in anticipation. Five minutes later, all the food was gone, and all the men had left the room. Dorothea and Annabelle breathed a common sigh. Annabelle said, "Now, ladies, I think we may leave the dining room with a bit more decorum, but be careful of the spittoons that have been pushed about." Indeed, the one against the wall behind my chair was more than half full of dark, odorous liquid.

We got back to the ladies’ cabin without mishap.

Our common battle had broken down the strangeness between us, so for the rest of the journey we sat in an intimate circle, just as if we were friends, and told one another bits about ourselves. The two gray-haired ladies introduced themselves as the Misses Tonkin. "Now, my dear," said Dorothea, the older one, "I know that sounds just as if we were Chinese, but we come from Cornwall, in England. Tonkin there is like Tompkins somewhere else."

"But we don’t come from there any longer, Dorothea. We come from Wisconsin, not far from Galena. Every year, we take the Galena packet to Saint Louis and shop for winter things. It’s a nice trip for us, don’t you see. We get to see the river, which is so lovely, and all the best French things are in Saint Louis. You can see this lace, here." She held up her sleeve, and it was true: the black lace that edged it was delicate and handsome. "If Mr. Tonkin, our brother, only knew how we were spending our money!" The two of them laughed.

"But he does know, sister," rejoined Dorothea. "That’s part of the pleasure!"

"Our brother Nicky has been dead these ten years," said Annabelle. "He was a most serious man, and we took care of him all our lives. On his deathbed, he promised to look upon us from on high and continue to guide us, but thankfully we have never noticed anything of the sort since then. We are quite at our own disposal."

"None of the three of us ever married."

Annabelle leaned toward me. "He was unusually exacting, my dear. He would have been quite a trial to an unsuspecting young girl." The two sisters exchanged a cheerful look.

I said, "I just got married this morning, and Mr. Newton and I are on our way to Kansas."

"My goodness, Dorothea," said Annabelle. "What a lovely thing to say! There is all the hope and happiness in the world in that one sentence. ’I just got married this morning, and we are on our way to Kansas!’ You are the envy of everyone in the United States, my dear, if not the world!"

"The climate is supposed to be mild and healthful—"

"I hope you married for love, my dear," said Dorothea. "If you are going to marry at all, that is the best way."

At first I only smiled, not liking to reveal myself to strangers, even friendly ones, but then the other woman in the saloon looked at me with very serious eyes, and then her daughter did, as well, and with their dark eyes staring so sadly out from under their black bonnets, I said, "I did. Yes, I did." I thought of Mr. Newton, his pale skin and his pale hair and his long fingers, his intelligent look, and his amusement, and my sense of how large he was, larger every minute, it seemed, and how much, deep down, I was looking forward to seeing him again at the end of this journey, and I thought that that made up "love" as much as I knew it. The woman and her daughter took each other’s hands and squeezed. Dorothea said, "This is Mrs. Evelyn and her daughter, Mary. They have suffered a bereavement."

Dorothea addressed her, said, "Now, Mrs. Evelyn, if you don’t mind my saying so, I hope you have some money of your own, and won’t be at the mercy of your brother. He may be very dear to you and you to him, but..." She shook her head.

Annabelle filled the silence that ensued. "Our father was a Cornishman to his very heels, and when he died, he left the whole property to our Nicky, even though in this country a man need not do that."

"Our Nicky was a tight-fisted gentleman." They took up their work and sewed industriously. The steam engine hummed and the boat churned. I thought again of the water below us.

Mrs. Evelyn said, "Mr. Evelyn trusted in the Lord to provide for us."

"Perhaps He will, my dear," said Dorothea. "But until then, here is a bit to tide you over." And she pressed a small black silk purse into Mrs. Evelyn’s hand. No matter what that lady then did, Miss Dorothea Tonkin would not take the purse back again. Finally, Mrs. Evelyn put the black purse in her pocket. Mary, who possibly had some private worries about these very matters, smiled a quick, secret smile, and her mother said, "You ladies are too generous! I don’t even know you! I’ll remember this as long as I live!"

"What we say to ourselves, dear, is that we cannot make it up to all of those who needed something of our Nicky while he was alive and were turned away, and so when we have the opportunity, we do for him what he should have done for himself. He was a religious man, but I fear he was mistaken in his beliefs, because he substituted many very austere doctrinal restrictions for charity. What Dorothea and I suspect is that he was much disappointed when he came to receive his reward."

"What you might say is that we are buying him off." The two chuckled together. "At any rate, my dear," continued Dorothea, "we have no family, so we are always tempted to spend too much on our own amusement, so say no more!"

Mrs. Evelyn said no more but did pat her pocket in a wondering fashion. Not long after that, Mr. Newton appeared at the door of the ladies’ cabin and declared that we were passing the mouth of the great Missouri River and that I should come to the railing and see what those waters had brought from the west. We all hastily put away our work and went to the door. I saw Miss Annabelle look Mr. Newton up and down. He helped her over the threshold, then held out his hand for Miss Dorothea. She thanked him. I was pleased to observe that the two Misses Tonkin seemed favorably impressed with my new husband.