A Sweetness to the Soul Read online

  My shot ended up far right of the target. Papa jerked the rifle from my arms, turned to run toward the house, leaving me standing with the recoil of the Kentucky burning in my shoulder and the wonderment of another baby on its way.

  I had so wanted to please Papa.

  I knew it was not the distraction of Rachel sending Papa for the midwife that had taken my eye from the target. No, it was his last instruction. For the face of the only “Injun” I could imagine when Papa gave his direction was Sunmiet’s.

  It was a face I simply couldn’t shoot at, not on that day, nor any other.

  DREADS

  The thing is, you cannot ease the pain of loss without enormous energy which you have already expended dealing with your grief. Memories flood up from everywhere to overcome you, the new never as good as the old. The smell of hollyhocks, the making of a doll, the sounds of fast-flowing water, none ever arrives from your memory without bringing a bittersweet pain. The pain does not disappear just because you wish it. That was part of the lesson being twelve taught me and I carried it well into my life.

  For years I thought about it every day, wondered if the time would ever come when I could roll Pauline’s carving between my fingertips or listen to a child catch his breath in his sleep without remembering in great detail the events of one week of that year.

  Those events changed my life. But then, it is rarely the event but our reactions to it that change our lives I’ve found. I know that now. That week changed what I thought I longed for.

  Papa said 1860 was the “dawn of a new era” though South Carolina’s secession happened later. Of course, our year had already been mightily and irrevocably changed by then.

  Mama was busier than ever, I remember. She ministered to the newcomers, helping them find shelter, baking and taking food to them, acting as a midwife when she could. She often dragged us along “to entertain the little ones” while she helped some woman pound laundry on the rocks or skin a hog. I liked what she did to help, but felt green-eyed jealousy, too, over time that others got with her.

  Papa, too, was busy and his interests turned to politics. There was war talk among the Paiutes far away but he worried some about “our Injuns” as he called them, wondering if they would shift their peaceful ways.

  Papa expressed his views more stridently, getting louder when someone disagreed. Mama never hid the corn liquor when people stopped by but I heard her threaten to a time or two. I can still see them: Papa and Mr. Henderson—with his large stogie bobbing from the corner of his mouth—jawing, they called it, working hard to get the military to release some of their holdings, make them available for sale, so “The Dalles” as Dalles City was being called now, could grow. Settlers needed places to live beside the Columbia. “Why, the army even owns the docks!” Papa’d say, pounding his pipe against his brogans. “How can a river town grow with no right to own its docks?” Henderson and his cronies would murmur their assent while the heat rose from the fireplace and the fervor in their hearts.

  Over cups of corn liquor, they talked of Indian uprisings, the unsettled Paiutes, the quiet Sahaptin people, the brassy Wascos who still demanded their fishing sites along the Columbia despite the treaty. “Those Wascos are a trial,” Henderson noted. “Acting like worldly traders, flashing their affluence, talking like they know what’s what. Even speaking French some of ’em.”

  “It’s Chinookan jargon,” Papa told him. “And they know their way around their world; ours too.” He relit his pipe and smoked. “Negotiated a pretty fair treaty, you ask me. Got territory south of here not ever a part of their history.” He shook his head in a begrudging admiration.

  The men spoke of settlement and growth and the need to “take advantage of both.”

  Mama and Papa were both busy with the Methodist Church where we spent one Sunday in The Dalles each month. Other Sundays, we joined our neighbors at the Walker School for services.

  I often watched the little ones while Mama looked after people or spent time with the Methodist Ladies’ Aid Society, or if Papa was busy, or when the neighbors came to sit a spell and jaw. Not smart enough, I remember thinking, to listen to the grown-ups, but wise enough to watch after all their children. Seemed a contradiction to me then as I thought the children the greater responsibility. And now, as I watch the mothers send their young daughters off to tend the little ones when they’re just little ones themselves. It is one of Sunmiet’s family’s qualities I most admire, that children are allowed to be a part of learning from adults, challenging themselves by watching and listening instead of being set aside.

  I had no memory of Mama’s South and didn’t know what secession meant so would have stayed to listen and learned about the impending war if they had let me. When Mama and Papa and their friends began their “deliberations” as Mama called them, I rolled my eyes at Rachel knowing we’d soon be asked to step outside.

  Often, we two herded Pauline and Loyal out the door before they asked, knowing it would come. Baby George could still sleep through it.

  Yes, there were five of us Herbert children in 1860 and doing well. Until that April.

  It was Pauline’s birthday. Mama and Papa and their neighbors, the prosperous Hendersons, and the up-and-coming Senior Mays sat inside, deliberating.

  “Take the little ones with you when you go, will you please, Jane?” Mama said. Rachel and I headed toward the door. Mrs. Henderson fanned herself with a lace hankie and smiled her wooden-tooth smile at me as she sat on the parlor chair, her skirts flounced about her like bloomers on someone standing in a pond. She looked equally as out of place in our small parlor.

  “Give Lodenma a break,” Mrs. Henderson said as was her way in her high pitched, little girl’s voice.

  “When you come in later,” Mama continued, her voice hurried like she had little time to talk, “we’ll have peppermint tea and cut Pauline’s day of birth cake. Run along now.”

  “Yes, run along now,” Mrs. Henderson added. She had an annoying habit of repeating what others said, as though to confirm my suspicion that she had not one original thought in her head.

  It meant a few more little hands to hold, taking Lodenma’s girl, but I truly didn’t mind. Lodenma smiled and nodded her concurrence. Her eyes drooped tiredly, a young mother not roused by her children, but wearied.

  “Let’s play statue,” Rachel said as soon as we left our clapboard house and stepped onto the grass lawn sliced out of the rolling hills. “I’ll swing first.”

  It was like Rachel to think of something quickly, something that would put her in charge.

  “You’re always first,” Pauline complained. “You swing too hard. My arm hurts from last time.” She rubbed her elbow delicately, her lower lip ready to drop to the ground.

  “Baby,” Rachel said. Her dark sausage curls flipped as she turned to me. “I want to be first,” she said. She always expected me to act as arbiter. The set jaw of stubbornness she was known for was just beginning, and I was deciding whether to let it grow into a full-fledged whine or let Rachel have her way when the Henderson boy interrupted.

  He kicked a rock with his foot first. He was taller than me and at fourteen, more than two years older. I only saw him move fast at the butcher shop. On more than one occasion he waltzed into Twin Dika’s shop and while Twin’s back was bent to some carcass, Luther would grab the end of a spool of string and whiz out the door with it. The trick was to see how long a string he could get before Twin noticed and cut that umbilical cord—and the game—with his knife. It was a favorite competition with the boys and Luther always ended with the longest string. Other than that, he moved slowly, like a summer sunset.

  “S’pose Pauline should go first,” he offered lazily that day. “It’s her birthday.” He batted at a gnat before his face.

  “Oh, poo,” said Rachel, quick to respond. Then, resigned, “Come here, Pauline.” She didn’t wait for my pronouncement, deciding Luther’s words held weight enough. She grabbed Pauline and clasped her hands around the
child’s pudgy waist and swung her ever so carefully, releasing her arms and tossing her gently onto the grass kept clipped by Papa’s sheep. As she should, Pauline lay in a heap, pantaloon-covered bottom stuck up in the air, head and hands helping to balance herself in the bottoms-up position.

  “Hurry,” Pauline cried out laughing, her voice muffled by the grass. “Before the hogs come round.”

  “They’ll root you, thinking you’re a tater,” Luther teased as Pauline squealed anew.

  Loyal, age two, lined up next and once again, Rachel was gentle, swinging the fragile boy by his bony arm. Giggling, he managed to stay standing when she released him and stood statue-still, one arm up in the air, the other held out behind him. I can see him yet! His effort lasted only a moment once an orange flicker flew by to distract him. He was easily distracted, I remember.

  “You’re next, Luther,” Rachel called. “Come here.” She liked to boss the Henderson boy around.

  I have never asked him about that afternoon, wondering if he remembered each detail as I, held himself at all accountable, not that he should. It was a subject rarely discussed, in fact, I only discussed it once with my mother, and that was years after.

  “Bet you can’t toss me at all,” Luther said, sticking his stocky arm out for Rachel to grab.

  Hound yelped, his long ears flopped joyously as Luther spun Rachel round and round, her pale skirt flying, ribbons slipping from the bow at the back of her dark curls. She squealed. “Told you,” Luther said.

  Two of the hogs that acted more like pets heard her squealing and joined us, grunting.

  “Hurry up!” Pauline wailed. “I can’t stay,” she added, and dropped to her side, laughing, the pigs getting closer to her tiny face.

  Luther finished swirling Rachel, and she let herself be tossed into a half up, half down posture, crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue. The pigs came running to her. Loyal plunged into her, laughing. Luther shook his head. “Now you,” he said to the child sitting next to me on the grass. As he waved his arms, the pigs moved reluctantly off.

  Lodenma’s little girl was Loyal’s age and she had been feeling hot of late, her mother said. Kind of listless and she leaned her head into my side and I felt the warmth and her reluctance to play statue. “Beatrice doesn’t want to. I’ll just keep her here by me,” I told him.

  “Let me swing you, then,” Luther said to me, prodding. “I bet I can even if you are almost twelve.” He smiled his wide smile, his blue eyes twinkling in his mother’s horse-like face.

  I ignored him. “I’d say you won, Rachel, even if you hadn’t planned to be spun.”

  “I did, didn’t I,” Rachel said saucily. “I was the most interesting statue, and for the longest, at least ’til Loyal pushed me.” She ruffled his blunt cut hair good-naturedly. “Well, that didn’t take much time. What should we do now?”

  “Jane could shoot for us,” Luther said, yawning. “I hear she’s a real good shot.”

  Later, I wished that I had listened to him, done something safe and simple. At the time, I shook my head. “Not today. Besides, I’m only allowed to if Papa says.”

  “We could take a walk. Go to the creek and look for fish, then,” Luther proposed. He sighed and looked around.

  “Yuk!” Rachel said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Fish?” Loyal asked, interested.

  “Papa says no sense fishing when the cows are laying down,” I said. We all turned in unison to see if the Herefords Papa had purchased were lying, chewing their cuds. “At least we could walk that way,” I said when we noticed none standing.

  I wondered idly if Fifteen Mile Creek ran swollen.

  It had been a long but open winter and the snow melt might still rush down the mountain keeping the streams muddied though not flooded. A walk, though, was something we all could do, even the little ones. Surely no danger lurked in that.

  Loyal reached for my free hand and slipped his stubby fingers around mine and squeezed. I remember his hand felt so warm. So smooth. So trusting.

  Beatrice, Lodenma’s girl, gripped my other hand and we started off down the path. “Stay close, Pauline,” I cautioned as the girl tripped ahead of me, trying to keep up with Luther and Rachel already out of sight down the path.

  Papa’s holdings had grown over the years so our birthday group walked past two large barns, a smoke house, and corrals holding several mules and horses now, too. The stock would be put on pasture soon. The spring had been late and only recently had the snow melted off the sidehills making room for the shoots of green to push through. Soon Rachel and I would begin taking the cows farther and farther from home each day to graze, watching them and bringing them back again at night. “Yes. Well. Won’t be long,” Mama’d said, “before Pauline and Rachel should be able to perform that duty, freeing you up to help more with the babies and work at home.”

  I wish it had all come to pass.

  We had more cows, too. Precious had several calves and Papa had traded a month’s labor and hard cash for a new, special kind of bull and two cows brought from across the ocean. This new bull we’d named “The Marshall” for his constant guarding look through brooding eyes. He watched us now as we walked past him, eyes following us like we were something good to eat as he chewed his cud and the warm sun beat on our faces. We squinted back at him.

  In no time, Beatrice and I caught up with Luther and Rachel. They had already slipped off their Sunday shoes and stockings, and with some alarm I noticed their feet already sloshed in the cold, rushing water. They squealed, jumped back, raced back along the bank, stepping into wild iris and yellow bells that bloomed in a wild bouquet beside the water. The air was crystal clear and their young and chattering voices bounced against the ridge that lined the stream. Pauline took only a moment to join them even though I yelled for her to stop, then thought better of it. What harm could come? And they’d resent my acting like their mama, making them behave. Then Loyal broke free from my hand. Not bothering to unlace his shoes nor wrench free his socks, he simply plunged past them toward the water’s edge.

  I hadn’t thought the creek would be quite so rushing. Now I wondered, too, if the rattlesnakes were out easing their way beside the water.

  Branches collected along the edge catching debris, creating mounds of trash beside the banks that seemed perfect places for a small child to explore and that’s where Loyal headed.

  He was wet from head to toe before I even knew it. I yelled and Luther caught the alarm in my voice and seeing where I looked, headed that way, pulling Loyal farther back from the slick grass beside the banks. Pauline was not much better but at least she sat along the wet bank and darted her feet in and out of the water like dragon flies bouncing off a swirling pond.

  I knew I’d best get them all away, take them back, and yelled something about “cake!” hoping they’d come running. And they did, muddy clothes, wet feet, and all.

  It was only seconds, really, and away from the water, with the warm sun and grass, we dried their feet quickly. I carried Loyal since even his shoes were wet. I felt his cold feet bob lightly on my hip and rubbed one foot warm with my hand. Luther put Beatrice on his shoulders and we walked back without a care.

  I never dreamed as we passed the watchful Marshall bull and ate cake later that I would remember our trip to the stream as my last outing with my sisters and brother.

  Loyal began the fever first. Complaining, he pulled away from us while the party still rumbled with the voices of happy children, the men still spoke of politics, and my mother still smiled absently at Mrs. Henderson’s repetitions.

  Lodenma stroked Beatrice’s hair as she curled her in her arms and even commented that she didn’t seem as warm as when she’d first gone outside. “Spring fever,” Mama said. I could tell as she placed the back of her hand on Loyal’s forehead, that she held a worry. She seemed pleased when the Hendersons and Mays took their leave at dusk.

  Loyal’s voice caught in his throat and he croaked out “porcupine” and with h
is stubby fingers inside his mouth, he pointed to the pain. Mama put cool rags on his throat and wiped his face of the sweat and gave him juniper berry tea until he shook his head and coughed. He gasped for air each time.

  “We’ll try garlic and clover honey,” Mama said while Papa went for the doctor.

  What little memory I had of my older brother Ambrose came visiting that afternoon, and I believe my mother must have relived his dying in those hours with Loyal, wondering if she would ever bring any son of hers to manhood.

  The room smelled of sticky bedclothes, garlic and juniper berries boiled in water in the fireplace cauldron. Through the evening, Loyal’s breathing became shallower though it seemed he worked harder and his face took on a bluish tint. I put the girls to bed and tucked them in, assuring them that Loyal would be fine by morning. I walked the floor with Baby George, talking softly, murmuring prayers, worrying, too, for him and for my mama.

  And then, before Papa and the doctor could return, Loyal’s fever deepened and he died.

  It was a Monday, early in the morning, before the meadowlarks would sing.

  On Tuesday, with Loyal laid in his small bed, all freshly washed by the Ladies’ Aid Society women, but not yet put to rest in the ground, Rachel began to rub her throat and complain and Papa, still grieving for a second son, went immediately for the doctor.

  A big man who looked always as though he’d slept in his dark brown suit, Dr. Jessup wasn’t far away this time and when he arrived, he poured laudanum from a vial dwarfed by his large hands. Rachel opened her mouth like a baby bird and took the stuff, grimacing as the liquid hit her throat and seemed to swell her tongue. Then the doctor conferred with Mama about herbs to ease the throat pain, help the labored breathing that had begun. He said to keep the juniper tea coming. “Think it’s the mucous sickness they call diphtheria,” he told us. “Keep her swallowing, Elizabeth. That’s what matters.”

  And then he asked what both Loyal and Rachel might have done in recent days together that could have caused the sickness.