The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton (50 page)

’John Brown didn’t hack any women to death." But I said it sheepishly, the only way you would say something like that.

"And you know, they round up your people, and they make them go off, whether they want to or no, even the mammies and little ones, and they drive them north like cattle or sheep or something, and then, when they’ve got them so far from home that they can’t ever return, no matter how much they want to, why, then they just let them go on their own. The skilled ones, like Mr. LaFrance’s Isabelle, they might be all right, you know, but not everyone is skilled like that. Papa says it’s even odds who takes care of whom. When the cholera came through here, my mama was out in the cabins washing and feeding and setting fires, and she wore herself out, so that Delia said to her that she wouldn’t have been surprised if Mama’d ended up laying down her own life for her people, and that was why Delia would never leave her, no matter what. Even though they aren’t all truly grateful like that, most are, and we’re their family as much as anything else, and Jim Lane and John Brown and that awful Dr. Robinson just want to tear them away from us and drive them north into the snow! And you know they just can’t tolerate the snow!" Here she burst into a fury of weeping.

I said, "I don’t think you should be afraid of attack, Helen. I was just in Kansas City myself, and in Independence, too, and they weren’t talking of that at all. They were talking of what a fool Jim Lane was and how he would never amount to anything." And, it is fair enough to add, I did believe this portion of what I was saying. ’And Robinson is in prison."

"But that was days ago!"

"Yes, but a four-hundred-man army of real soldiers doesn’t just turn up."

"But I’m sure it’s the federals, who’ve turned their coats and made up their minds to break the laws and comfort the traitors. It’s been months since John Brown and his sons hacked those men to death, and the federals haven’t stirred a stump out of their camps, because they don’t want to, no matter what the President tells them to do. Papa says it’s just a scandal and they should all be court-martialed, but the New Englanders have all the money in the world, and they make sure things go their way! Oh, my goodness, who will protect us!" But even as she said this, she was already sighing and growing calmer. Finally, she said, "Papa said I must go off to bed, but I don’t know how I’m going to sleep now! May I ... May I ..."

"Yes, you may sleep in here. I feel fine, and the bed is sufficiently large for the two of us, I think."

She was much relieved. I refrained from mentioning that should she awaken in the middle of the night, she would find an abolitionist right here in the room with her!

When she had gone to her own chamber and come back in her nightdress and wrapper, with her hair falling down her back and her candle in her hand, I said, ever so idly, "So tell me about your papa’s guests," and she named Mr. Harris and Mr. Perkins, and Mr. Smith and Mr. Chesbrough, but never Mr. Chaney or Mr. Samson. "They are all so old! Thirty-five, at least, and Mr. Chesbrough is fifty-six!" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Truly I despair of ever finding a husband! Sometimes I almost wish for a war. Don’t you think officers are very handsome-looking and serious? If they would all come and march around, and then declare a truce, it would certainly be splendid!"

CHAPTER 23

I Improve My Acquaintance with Papa

Nankeens look best, washed in suds, with a teacup of ley added for each pailful. Iron on the wrong side. Soak new nankeens in ley, for
one night, and it sets the color perfectly. —p. 288-89

EVERYTHING HELEN HAD PROMISED came quickly to pass. Isabelle arrived with the breakfast and inspected the two dresses while I was eating. As soon as Lorna took the tray away (the two women did avoid looking at one another), I stood up and was measured. Isabelle was not especially talkative, but she had a Louisiana lilt to her voice, "Lawsy, you be a big gal, missy. I don’ know ifn we got enough goods in de skirt! Hmm. What we gone to face this with?" But then she set to work and made over the nankeen in no time. The green gown she elected to take home with her, as she had some stuff she could piece into it, and then, with a bit of trim ... Helen was right: the woman was a genius.

I brushed my hair and put on the nankeen, which was flattering enough, perhaps as flattering a dress as I had ever had, and indeed I had never had a dress from Saint Louis, the reputed origin of this one. I felt it drape attractively about my figure. Mrs. Harris had also supplied an old petticoat, which, though rather too short, did the trick well enough.

It was thus that I was enabled to descend the stairs at suppertime and meet Papa.

I can hardly remember what I expected, perhaps some elegant long-haired sort, or, alternatively, a Ruffian so bearded that only his eyes were visible—as Mrs. Bush had said, Missourians all seemed to like to cultivate an abundance of hair—but Papa, Mr. Richard Aloysius Day, was small, almost tiny, and entirely bald. The top of his head rose only to my shoulder, and every chair that he habitually sat in had a high, hard cushion, upon which he perched like a bird, the better to stare at you, also like a bird. But he did not have a birdlike voice, but rather a lovely baritone, entirely the voice of another man, and in the parlor sat a large piano. In the course of my stay at Day’s End Plantation, Papa himself sat down at the piano perhaps three or four times and sang. As Lorna later said to me, "It do stand your hair on end to hear dat big voice comin’ out of dat little head, but he sing like some angel, sure ’nuf."

On my first night, however, I was as yet unaware of Papa’s talents, only taken aback by the figure he made in the dining room at supper, sitting up in his chair with his napkin tucked into his collar and his fork lifted to dart at his food. By contrast, Helen, who was very attentive to him, looked like another animal entirely, a sleek filly, perhaps, all limbs and grace. What sort of animal did I look like to them, with my wisps of hair and my big hands and my plain face? Nothing local, I am sure.

We ate rabbit that Malachi had shot, cooked with a considerable quantity of mustard. Papa’s fork popped little bits between his lips quickly, quickly, quickly, and his lips snapped shut over them. He cocked his shining head at me, ate a bit of bread, darted me a smile, let the wonderful baritone roll out. "Mrs. Bisket"—yes, I had taken Louisa’s name—"my beloved daughter tells me that you are a wanderer in our country, without connections or resources."

"Yes, sir, she speaks truly."

"And yet you comport yourself in a ladylike manner and speak with educated tones. I am told you carry books in your case. I am a reading man. After we have supped, I will show you my library."

After a long moment of silence, I ventured, "I came west and discovered that conditions were not as they had been represented. I met with some misadventures."

"You and your husband came west with no company or connections? Very enterprising."

I pondered how much to divulge. The Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company was, perhaps, the most famous "company" in the west or anywhere else. And Helen had mentioned the books to him, though I didn’t know whether she’d named them. Finally, I thought the safest thing was to concede his assumptions. I said, "Yes. We had no company or connections out here."

"I offer my condolences on his death, my dear. The death of my own wife has been a permanent grief to me, and I have told my three daughters that I will never marry again."

This seemed as good a time as any to subside into silence. Papa’s manners and evident curiosity had a way of drawing me, so that it required positive resistance not to tell some story, either true or fabricated. But I was a little afraid that I would mix myself up if I spoke too voluminously, and there was this, as well—I didn’t want Papa to get into the habit of expecting me to be forthcoming. For one thing, I was his guest, not his daughter, and for another, a trickle now could easily turn into a stream later, and then into a cataract. It was better that I should retain as much mystery as possible with Papa. My sisters would have asserted that such a course would be easy for me, as they had considered me backward and unsociable all my life, but it was far more difficult not to lay myself out to be agreeable in this house of strangers than it had been at home. Papa’s every bright glance seemed to call up some response, some bit of intelligence. I ate industriously, as if I were famished, and soon I was exceedingly full.

"And so your husband had connections in the west?"

"Not really, no."

More rabbit.

"But surely he knew someone?"

"No; I would have to say no."

A forkful of greens.

"He didn’t come from a large family, then?"

"No, not especially."

A bite of bread.

"And yourself? You’ve left many behind?"

"I have sisters."

More rabbit.

"They’re all older."

A sip of well water.

"Much older."

"Your own father and mother?"

Another sip of water, to cool the heat of the mustard.

"They passed on."

As light and energetic as Papa was, I must say conversing with me was heavy work for him. Finally, Helen could stand it no longer, and she said, in an ever so low and respectful tone of voice, "Oh, Papa, I told you of Louisa’s tragedy. She’s disconsolate. We should ..."

Papa ceased asking questions for now, but little looks, like little sparks of light, continued to flash across the table. After supper, I begged to be excused and went up to my room. I wasn’t tired at all, but I saw that I was going to have to make the most of my ill health, so as to keep to my room and avoid Papa as much as possible.

This did not prove to be easy, as Papa was quite as cordial as Helen by nature, and there was the added spur of my mysteriousness that encouraged him to search me out and attempt to draw me. The very next morning, though I wasn’t expected to take breakfast downstairs (Helen did not, either), Lorna brought me a note along with my tray, inviting me to take a look at Papa’s library. Helen’s door was still closed, as by Thomas’s watch it was not much after seven, so there would be no protection from that quarter. Papa’s handwriting was tall and narrow, but full of whorls and flourishes. It surprised me—perhaps I had expected it to be made up of a sort of pecking.

Papa was standing in a small room off the parlor, as sprucely fitted up as if he had been standing there like a diminutive statue all night long, only awaiting my coming to bring him to life. "Ah, my dear—Louisa, is it? Louisa Bisket. Unusual name, indeed. Never heard it before in these parts. But I know you aren’t from these parts by your own testimony, don’t I?"

I smiled and wished him good morning. He bowed over my hand.

"There was a Bisket at college with me, a class or two ahead. Tall fellow. Can’t remember where his people were from, though."

I hazarded a question: where had Papa gone to college?

"That was a good time of life, wasn’t it? College. Only spent a year there, in fact. Princeton College, it was. Not too many men from the west in those days at that college. They thought me an odd bird indeed!" He laughed. "Even though I had curls enough, and great mustaches, to boot!" He laughed again, and I laughed, too.

"However, the ministry was not the life for me. I was made to be a farmer, though a reading farmer. You’ll see that I have a great many works on agriculture here in my library. I make it my practice to emulate the great Mr. Jefferson, who was a terrific improver and had sound ideas upon government and farming, and architecture, too! This house was designed according to Jeffersonian principles, though of course we have humbler materials to work with here in the west. Ah, well. The bank is an evil institution, and the rush of our civilization into the arms of money, as it were, is a great corruption!

"These are my books!" He turned and swept his little arm in an arc toward the two walls of books. I would guess that they numbered five hundred or so, indeed a sizable library for a Missouri farmer, and possibly a matter, had she known it, of significant surprise to Mrs. Bush, who always held that Missourians read only a few words of the Bible and wrote only their first names.

I did as I was expected, which was to step over to the shelves and admire. I couldn’t resist saying, "My husband was a great reader." There was plenty to admire—Mr. Shakespeare’s entire works, and those of Mr. Milton, and Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Joseph Addison. The poems of Mr. Pope were bound in red calf and decorated in gold, and of course there were some volumes of Mr. Jefferson’s writings, as well. There was a whole shelf of volumes in French, and ten or a dozen titles in what appeared to be German. As I perused them, Papa stood back, his hands clasped behind him and a great smile on his face. Ivanhoe, The Lady of the Lake, Rob Roy, Marmion, Quentin Durward. I touched one, and Papa said, "I am a lover of Scott. He knows what freedom means to a man!" I put my hand down at my side. Poe. I paused to look, and he said, "I knew the poor fellow, can you imagine? They drove him from pillar to post, but indeed, he wasn’t himself sinless by any means." I looked in vain for Emerson, Hawthorne, Mr. Thoreau, Mrs. Stowe, the books Thomas could not be without, but in Papa’s library, it was as if they had never lived. The novelists and poets here were all English ones, except for Madame Sand, who reposed, in French, right beside Monsieur Hugo. I murmured, "I am sorry I don’t read French. But indeed, you have few American writers here!"

Papa flared up at once. "Who is there? Only those who spout treason and nonsense! Oh, my dear, you will be sorry you said such a thing, because you will find me unstoppable on the subject! Our nation is a rose-bud, blighted at its very opening by money and industry and all of what I call the iron ways! Boilers! Railroads! Steamboats! Armories! Coal dust, coal smoke, coal stink! We are being hammered willy-nilly into iron bonds! Where are you from?" His eyebrows shot upward, and without resisting, but quick enough to lie, I said, "Palmyra."

"You are fortunate! Vow never to go to Chicago or Cincinnati or New York’s inferno! Such places destroy your faith in the future!"

"I’ve never been to any of those cities. I’ve never been to a city."

"And you are better for it, young lady! Come with me!" Papa now grasped me by the elbow and hurried me out of the library, first into the hall and then out a door that turned out to open onto a rear veranda that was at ground level. The kitchen wing of the house enclosed us to the right. To the left, there was a prospect of two fields divided by a rail fence, one a pasture with cows and horses in it and the other a field of hemp, tall, leafy, and ready to be harvested. Several oaks dotted the pasture, and the animals grazed peacefully in their shade. To the right, partially hidden by the kitchen wing, was the stables and, behind them, a barn. Both were built of brick, like the house, but they were not whitewashed, as the house was. It was a pleasant prospect, and I was thinking I would like to get a better look at the horses sometime, when Papa seemed to leap into the air with excitement. He shouted, "Look at this—is this not the most divine vision you’ve ever seen?" He raised both arms, threw back his head, and spun around. "The fit and proper stewardship of the land! The useful verdure consecrated to our improvement by the Lord Himself on one side and the devoted beasts on the other, whose very contentment and low intelligence recommend them to our service! Who made that pasture? I did! Who built that fence? I did! Who planted that crop? I did, yes! But it wasn’t I! All I did was enter into a great preexistent circle and divide the plants from the beasts by a little fence, so that the beasts wouldn’t trample the tender shoots. Everything is perfection here! The rain falls from the sky, and beasts partake of the fruits of the soil and then themselves create the soil! There is a great flowering, beauty announcing itself, and then God’s messengers, the bees, go among the blossoms! All is given to us for our education and enjoyment, our nourishment and our contemplation! We hold out our hands, and what we need is placed in them!"

Papa took a few deep breaths, then came right up to me and looked up into my face. His bald head shone brightly in the morning sunlight. "To look at this, you wouldn’t know that we live in a fallen world, would you?" I didn’t have to respond, but I did think that his experience must have been considerably different from mine, if he supposed that I ever forgot that we lived in a fallen world. "Money!" he shouted. "Money, gold, cash, dollars! How does it get in everywhere, I ask you? How can it be that money has come between the land and its workers? Between a man and his dependents?" (Here one of the slaves happened to lead two horses, a mare and her half-grown colt, out of the stable area and toward the pasture.) "How can it be, this crime and this tragedy, that a man should have to pay money to purchase a fellowman to work his fields? That is the tragedy of our institution, not that we have these relationships of superiority and inferiority, as some wrongheaded northerners think, but that money has entered in and corrupted everything like a disease! You know why the slave is unhappy in his work? Not because he is a slave, but because he knows he represents a certain amount of money, a thousand dollars, say. He thinks that because he costs a thousand dollars, he is a thousand dollars, walking around. He feels himself rich! He’s distracted from his God-given purpose on this earth, which is to serve, not the master and the mistress, but the beasts and the plants and the round of rain and drought and growth and harvest! The so-called master and mistress serve the selfsame thing! We are all servants! The land is the master!" I wondered what Thomas would say to this, whether he would maintain his composure.