The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell (22 page)

One Sunday Jenny asked me to walk with her. We set off across the field in the late summer stillness, content to say nothing. We came to the stone fence and stopped in the shade.

“Joseph,” she said as though some question had just come, “do you want a farm of your own?” I saw where this might be going, and I didn’t know how to steer it.

“Yes,” I said. “I was thinking of staking a claim this autumn. A little west of here.”

Jenny paused and then lowered her voice. “Joseph, do you like me?”

“You know I do,” I said. I didn’t say more, and she knew I was keeping something from her.

“Joseph, you know what I want to know. Do you like me a lot?”

Suddenly, I saw the way.

“More than I should,” I said, looking up.

“Why do you say it like that?”

I took a breath. “Because I have a sweetheart back east.”

Jenny looked away. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Jenny, I’m sorry. I should have—”

She cut me off with a wave of her hand. “What’s her name?”

“Lydia.”

“And you will send for her when you have a place of your own?”

“God willing,” I said, knowing that God would never be willing.

Jenny gave a slow nod. “I’m sorry to hear this, Joseph, because I fancy you.”

I wanted to draw her to me, but we weren’t out of sight and it wouldn’t have been right anyway. Instead, I met her brown eyes. “And I fancy you, my dear, beautiful Jenny. And if you must know, I shall be jealous of the man who will be your husband.”

There was a silence. Then her face brightened. “And I shall be jealous of your wife.” She leaned forward and brushed my cheek with a kiss.

* * *

A few weeks later I saw Jenny walking with Charlie and felt a pain in my chest. I told myself that this was as it should be. I had cut things off with Jenny as I should have with Lydia. I was to be alone, and there was nothing to be done. I wanted to be with Lydia, or even Jenny, but no matter how good a man I pretended to be, I could have neither. All I had won by my deceit was some imitation of freedom. Was it a fair trade? I couldn’t say, but I knew one thing for certain—my condition was irreversible. Having risen, however imperfectly, to the rank of citizen, I could not go back to the indentured world of propriety and deference. Having spat freely into the fire, I could not now tend the fire and guard my expressions so as not to give offense. I was trapped. I could be no man’s wife. I could be no woman’s husband. That was my fate.

O
VER THE SUMMER, I looked at land west of Manannah. I found some with wood and good water, but I didn’t put in my stakes. No need—the rush of settlers had stopped. Trouble upstream.

It wasn’t a complete surprise. Men had predicted a day of reckoning if the speculation continued, but those men had been mocked in the St. Paul newspapers as
spoilers
or
croakers
. Then the banks closed, and those same newspapers ran notices for sheriff’s sales. Money disappeared. Recently wealthy men were said to be begging their breakfast on the streets of St. Paul. Otis told me I could stay on and work for no pay. I did and was happy to do it.

Just when things seemed darkest, a new entertainment appeared. It was a newspaper, the
St. Cloud Visitor
. And unlike those in St. Paul, its editor had a wry appreciation for the hardy people who worked the land. The Manannah farmers liked this. Soon enough, they forgave her for being a woman.

Jane Grey Swisshelm had left her husband to come west and start a newspaper. She was new to St. Cloud, so she called it the
Visitor
. Subscription for a year was two dollars, unless you couldn’t pay that, in which case she would accept anything she could eat, wear, or burn in her stove—that’s what she wrote. I sent the money, and the paper began to arrive.

Mrs. Swisshelm knew how to make folks laugh, and that was important, for sometimes that’s all they’d be down to. She encouraged people to share food, play music, and dance. This ruffled the feathers of a certain St. Cloud preacher, who one Sunday attacked the
Visitor
for encouraging wanton behavior. Mrs. Swisshelm was quick to reply:

Reverend Inman takes the ground that dancing is inseparable from drunkenness and that when a woman is led onto the dance floor, she is disgraced. This is ridiculous, and the religious prejudice against dancing is without foundation. That dancing might be abused is no more an argument against it than gluttony is an argument against regular meals. I say, dance on!

And that, in essence, is what we did. It was the autumn of 1857, and people were making do with almost nothing. And while prices fell, what fell most was land, until you couldn’t sell a piece for any price. Land for sale was everywhere. But you couldn’t eat land or wear it like a coat, so why would you pay money for it?

Some farmers loaded wagons and headed east.
Go-backs
they were called, though it wasn’t said unkindly. Indians could be fought, ruined crops could be replanted, but if the money to build the barn or purchase the seed couldn’t be raised, what was to be done?

As people left, their homesteads came open to claim. One that I knew sat on the south bank of the Crow midway between Manannah and Forest City. It had been settled by a family named Howard, but now they were leaving. I went out to see if they planned to return. The answer was no.

The Howard farm could have been mine for no money the day after they left, but I wanted to be at peace with the spirits. We talked for a time, and I bought their place, or rather their improvements, for one hundred and fifty dollars. For that, they agreed to leave the small stove and the provisions laid up in the cellar. It still felt like stealing, but just like that, I had rights to one hundred and sixty acres with a small cabin, a garden, and a shed. All I had to do for title was live on it for three years.

That night I announced the news at dinner. Otis smiled, and James got up and shook my hand. “What are you going to grow out there?”

“Horses.”

James shook his head. “You’d be better off with mules. If war comes—and by golly it will—you’ll be a rich man if you’ve got a farm full of mules.”

I laughed. What I couldn’t say was that I wanted to raise horses because it had been my dream with Lydia and my promise to Helen.

Mary Whitmore displayed no reaction to my news. I thought it strange, even for her. At the very least, I thought she’d be glad to see me gone. But all became clear soon enough. As the conversation died back, she held up her hand. “I am going back to live with Margaret,” she said, speaking of her sister in Evansville. “I am with child.”

Mary looked hard at Otis, so I supposed he was hearing this for the first time. Otis kept still. He could have forbidden Mary to leave, but he had already lost three children, and two of those she held against him. Finally, he spoke.

“When will you come back?”

“When the baby and I are ready to live here, and this place is fit to have us. I want you to take me to St. Cloud, the day after tomorrow.”

Otis threw down his fork and went out to the barn. All evening I could hear him hammering at the forge. Two days later, they left in the wagon. I wondered if Mary were truly with child.

* * *

A mist rose from the meadow, and the sun ate it for breakfast. Once the fields were dry, I hiked to a small rise and looked out at my land. The woods lay thick in the hollows, and the grass waved in the breeze. I could have rolled in it but didn’t. There was wood to be brought in and roots to be dug.

I was at my new house but a day when I looked up to see a man on a horse coming toward me. He was coarse looking, and it took a moment to remember. It was Willie McAllister, the horse trader that Captain Hillsboro had come up against during the Indian scare.

“Why, pardon me,” he said as he pulled up. “I was looking for Mr. Howard.”

“The Howards are gone,” I said, thinking he knew full well they’d left.

“So who are you?”

“I’m Joseph. I bought the place.”

“Did you,” he said, as though I were making up a story. “You new around here?” Willie didn’t remember me.

“No,” I said. “I worked at the Whitmore place this summer.” I wanted Willie to know I had friends, and that seemed to be just what he needed to hear. He nodded, told me his name, and said he lived down the road. I was glad then that I had decided to come out. Had I waited till spring, not a hook or a door hinge would have been left, I was sure of that.

* * *

Several weeks later I went into Manannah for supplies. It was late November, but the cold hadn’t settled in. There was mud everywhere, and the town looked neglected. The remains of the stockade were strewn about in careless piles.

I stayed the night with Otis and James. The house stank of wet wool, but I liked being there and having someone to talk to. And James was acting downright friendly. He asked me how I was getting on, and I talked about my growing pile of firewood, the leak in the roof, and Willie’s visit.

“Stay clear of him,” warned Otis.

“Oh, Willie don’t bother nobody,” said James. “Whatever horse thieving he does, he does it somewhere else.”

I turned to James. “He steals horses?”

“He ain’t even honest enough to do his own stealin’,” said Otis. “I think he and Jake just go south and buy ’em real cheap from … well, I don’t know who.”

“I heard Jake’s in jail in Dubuque,” said James.

“I hadn’t heard that,” said Otis. “But just stay clear. That’s what I’d do.”

“Well, hold on now,” said James. “Joseph wants to raise horses, and the cheapest ones just happen to be right down the road. People do buy from them, and I ain’t seen no one go to jail yet.” Otis shook his head but didn’t argue.

That night I sat before the fire and read three weeks of the
St. Cloud Visitor
. Our editor, Mrs. Swisshelm, seemed to be in a running battle with the boss of Stearns County, one General Sylvanus P. Lowry. He was said to still own slaves back in Tennessee, and she wasn’t about to let people forget it. Mrs. Swisshelm hated slavery, and there was hardly a week when she didn’t write some protest. These were often firsthand accounts of cruelties she had witnessed in Kentucky, stories of young women stripped naked and whipped for doing no more than trying to defend their honor. Mrs. Swisshlem, I decided, was the bravest woman I had ever heard of. No cut hair or men’s clothes for her.

* * *

That winter I slept like a bear. But I couldn’t sleep all the time. I’d get to thinking, because there wasn’t much else to do. I thought about my times in front of the fire with Noah White. I missed them now and began to regret that I had been so poorly mannered in the face of his sympathies. Noah had been my friend, yet I hadn’t bothered to say a simple goodbye. And I knew him well enough to know that he had been hurt by this. He was living alone and not surrounded by friends. How could he have not felt the slight? But there was no seeing him now, or trying to make good on any of it. He was two to three days from me in the dry summer and more than twice that in the snow. And you couldn’t tell from one day to the next what the sky was going to do.

I thought about Helen and wondered if this might be a place where she could come someday. It was so cold and dark, it didn’t seem likely. But I had told her that I would have horses, and I would make good on that. The rest would be in the hands of God.

And then there was Lydia. Was she now engaged to a young man, or had I ruined her life? Did her thoughts still stray to me on occasion, or had she put me out of her mind? I had too much time to roll it all about, and a devil began to whisper in my ear. It told me to write to her. Of course, any letter I wrote would be denied her and taken by her mother. Then I remembered that she had a cousin in Minnesota—the letter might not fall under suspicion.

I thought of an apology for running away. I could say that I was not ready for marriage. That, at least, would confuse the matter if the letter were intercepted—I was certain that Lydia would read between the lines. I would simply say that I was raising horses in Minnesota. Perhaps I might hear back from her in a letter. That is what I thought about, at first. But then I began to imagine her actually coming to Minnesota. I imagined her sitting across the table, laughing and reading aloud from the
St. Cloud Visitor
as she had done with the
Honesdale Herald
.

These were, of course, the thoughts of a woman who was not right with herself or the world, but please judge me after you have sat alone in the dark for a whole winter. During the daylight hours, all four or five of them, I would vow not to write to Lydia, to leave her alone as I had promised myself I would. But then, in the dark, I would find myself composing the letter, trying to think of the words that might bring her to me. The sentences rolled about in my mind, over and over, till I realized that I would have to send the letter or go mad writing it every day in my head.

To help put my thoughts aside, I would sometimes play the violin, mostly canal shanties or drinking songs. I hadn’t played “Laura’s Waltz” in two years, afraid of being crushed by memories of Lydia. But one evening I decided to play that waltz. I
wanted
to remember. And something else—I wanted the violin to give me its magic. I had seen it work in Father’s hand, and in my own. But never had I asked for all its power. What could it do?

I played the waltz once. Nothing changed. I played it again, slower. On the third time through, the room brightened, and suddenly I was able to see Lydia. She was in her yellow dress, looking out the window of the glass factory. I said her name, but she didn’t move. Then I played the song again, thinking that perhaps if I just kept playing it, I would be able to step into that very room. And, indeed, as I played on, I saw her turn to me. She smiled. She could hear the notes now, and soon I would be able to go to her, put my arms around her, and kiss her …

I woke on the floor, the fire dead in the stove.

I
WAS OUT in the woodlot before the snow was gone, cutting young trees for posts. My back took to the work, and my lungs liked the cool, early season air. I thought about horses and couldn’t quite get out of my head what James had said about Willie—that people had bought cheap from him, and nothing bad had happened. His place was on the way to Forest City, just down the road a few miles. It wasn’t much more than a tumbledown shack, but behind it was the darnedest collection of odd horses and Indian ponies. I saw a few that might be breeders and among them, a beautiful roan of sixteen hands that I wanted for myself.