TWELVE
The Farmer

1860

_______

Sunshine warmed the earth, and early plantings ensued throughout the region. Abigail—since the publication of her novel she went by her official name, Abigail Duniway—loved her view on Sunny Hillside and only wished she had more time to sit and enjoy it. Or had a chair that felt better on her back. Or didn’t have the morning sickness. Again. This child would be due next February. Abigail wrote now too for the Oregon Farmer. Her essays included information about the economics of the area, advised women to “buy local,” and took on California merchants who had complained about Oregon butter costs. She proposed a union for women who “do the work and get little of the profits.” She advocated for hired help for farmers’ wives; urged women—and men—to save; and preached about the value of staying out of debt. She winced when she wrote those words, knowing that Ben had signed those notes. She still signed her columns “The Farmer’s Wife” and often gave examples of what “the Farmer” himself had been up to, personalizing her pieces. She was paid small amounts for her articles, whose topics continued to garner interest both from the ladies of the region and also at men’s gatherings. Words have power, she told herself more than once. But did they really have the power to change a woman’s lot?

The extra money, though, felt good in her teapot bank, so words were changing their financial lot. It wasn’t much, but if disaster struck, she would have a next step to take and a little money to make it.

Her sister Kate gave birth “with ease,” she told Abigail. John was an attentive husband, and Kate’s life seemed more sublime than Abigail’s. She was happy for her sister but a bit wishful for those hours Kate had to read or simply sit and spend time with her baby. “You have time too,” Kate told her when she commented.

“Holy cow chips, when?”

“Early morning. But I suspect you’re writing then.”

“I am. And during school days, I’m preparing lessons.”

“We all make our choices.”

“Yes, we do.” Writing was one of Abigail’s. Becoming financially secure was another.

The summer eased its way into their lives with daily toils. Maybe Kate was right and she wouldn’t know a moment’s leisure if it washed her with warm water in a copper tub. Work consumed, though she did find joy in attending meetings at the Butte Creek Store, startling the men when she and a few stalwart women showed up not to speak, mind you, but to listen to the conversation about the fall election when a Republican had a chance to become president—an Illinoisan whom they had known as a lawyer from their small town back east.

Their wheat harvest that year was abundant, filling the warehouses along the Willamette River so ships could take their goods afar. Ben was happy and Abigail was too when America did elect its first Republican president in Abraham Lincoln. Abigail hoped he could stop the spread of slavery. All people should be free, in Abigail’s mind. Regardless of race—or sex.

Close to home, Sunny Hillside Farm proved productive too. Abigail thought there might be enough to buy a few household conveniences like a self-propelled butter churn and decent chairs, but Ben informed her that he’d spent $500 on the purchase of an adjoining farm. “We wouldn’t want someone else to come in under our noses and take that good property.”

“I could have used a new wringer. And I’ve read that a carpet sweeper has been patented. I’d like to have such a thing. Honestly, Ben, the hardest housework I do is sweeping. It agonizes my back no end. Couldn’t the needs of the farmer’s wife get a little attention?”

“Your back is likely worse now because you’re expecting.”

“Whatever the reason, it’s hard labor sweeping the carpets and floors with a broom.”

“I’ll sweep for you.”

“And where will you be when I’m gathering crumbs from beneath the table? You’ll be out on that additional farm with your paid helpers while I’m in here preparing food for them.”

“Now, Jenny. It’s in our best interest.”

“Our best interest would be to get out of those notes, to be able to set aside money. We’re paying interest and I haven’t seen Bob around reimbursing us.” She grunted at Ben’s silence and returned to her churn.

Wilke arrived February 13, 1861, the day before Oregon’s birthday—and right after six more states seceded from the Union. Abigail worried there would be war, but there was nothing she could do about it. Instead she delivered another boy for Ben to cuddle as he loved to do. Clara, at seven, was old enough to help by looking after Willis and Hubert the way that Abigail—as an older sister—had looked after her siblings while her mother gave birth. Clara, with her dark curls and puppy-dog eyes, big and brown and round, followed Abigail’s directions, then got out of the way when the midwife arrived.

“Good girl, Clara. Momma will be all right.” Abigail prayed even as she held her newborn in her arms that all her children would grow up healthy and able to spread their wings toward safety and goodness.

A few days after Wilke’s birth, Ben brought in the mail, including a large envelope with no return address. “This was in our postal box.”

“What is it?”

“A valentine perhaps?”

She looked to see if Ben had a glimmer of tease in his eyes.

He brushed at his copper-tinted hair, then bopped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I totally forgot. You give me another son for a valentine, and I get you nothing. I am a clod of a spouse.”

He bent to kiss her while she opened the envelope, not sure if he was the conveyor of the missive or its originator.

Looking inside, she knew. It was a drawing of a hen-pecked man with children crawling all over him, crying, clinging; and a disheveled woman, snaggletoothed and worn, holding a rolling pin like a weapon over the man’s head. The handwritten words were “Fiend, devil’s imp or what you will / you surely your poor man will kill / with luckless days and sleepless nights / haranguing him with women’s rights.”

“You . . . you gave me this?”

“What is it?” He stared. “Never. Jenny, no. Forget it.”

The sobs were as deep as they’d been when she’d read the horrible book reviews. “Have I ever given you reason to say such a thing?”

“I didn’t send that card to you, and if I’d realized that you’d take it seriously, I wouldn’t have brought it home. It’s from one of those ‘Farmer’s Wife’ readers. Bunter maybe.”

“Bunter. No, it’s too creative for him.” She paced. It scared her that everyone knew who the Farmer’s Wife was. “There are others out there, Ben, men who hate me, who besmirch you. I . . . I’m so sorry.” She set Hubert in his cradle. Will they threaten my children?

Like the reviews, the image was difficult to set aside. She didn’t want people thinking Ben was hen-pecked just because he loved his children or because his wife had opinions. Perhaps she should be a little less strident in her columns. Maybe back off from some of her suggestions, even though there were other writers—men—who advocated paid household help for farmers’ wives, and others—men—who wrote of women’s health and the depletion that came with too many children too close together. Even the Oregon Farmer carried articles now about family planning, they called it, and wrote discreetly of contraception. The economists—men—recognized the role of farmers’ wives in the successful weathering of the vagaries of markets. The moneymen saw how women marshalled attacks against everyday challenges of cooking, cleaning, and laundry. Of course, laundry.

Ben had told her of a man seeking a loan to build a bigger barn, and the lender had said unless he improved the condition of the house first, they wouldn’t make the loan. “A happy woman can make all the difference to the success of a farm. The lender said that.”

“Smart man,” she said.

She’d have to build stronger armor and not let such things as a mean-spirited valentine set her eyes to sprouting wells. Maybe having delivered a “new voter” to his cradle, she was oversensitive. Yes, she’d pony-up, as Ben told her when he wanted her to ride with him and go forward, forgetting past disasters.

At least she didn’t have the fate of the nation to deal with. Poor Mr. Lincoln would be inaugurated in March while a Confederate government had already installed its own. What do I have control over? Think on that. It became her new mantra.

War news dominated the summer. Harvey had had his fill of combat from the regional conflict, and he now slept in a tent in Forest Grove so he could attend the university there. Heavy snows fell early that winter in the Cascade mountains, and once or twice a foot or more at the valley floor.

“It’ll be good for the soil,” Ben said, though tromping the snowy mud through the house did little for their hardwood floors. More scrubbing on hands and knees ensued. More meditation with the broom.

Then it turned cold. Bitter cold. Rivers that had never frozen did. Cattle died for lack of feed in the eastern part of the state. Even in Lafayette, ice in water troughs had to be broken daily.

Abigail shivered as she rolled out egg noodles, looking with longing at the teapot, hoping she wouldn’t ever need the money inside to see them through.

At first when the warm rains came that November, people were relieved to have the snow melt. But it kept raining, for days, weeks, then months, off and on, through Christmas holidays and all of January 1862, pouring on them harder than any could remember. “Ark Rain,” the old-timers called it. Sheets of silver so dense Abigail couldn’t even see the fruit trees from the window. What should have been more snow in the mountains turned out to be early snow melt, the heavy snowfall in the Cascades earlier in November now swelling rivers and streams. The news from California and Nevada, too, reported heavier rains than usual and flooding. Rivers swamped the storehouses on the Willamette, carrying buildings and trees and bloated animals all the way to Astoria and the sea. The Duniway home stood above the waters with no risk of flooding—but getting across bridges to town proved a challenge, so eggs and butter remained unsold; letters for her column couldn’t be sent; no one was able to attend school; apples failed to reach their California or Chinese markets.

Abigail learned that the little town of Canemah—where her sister nursed her baby—had four feet of water running through the streets. People climbed to their rooftops, and John Coburn, Kate’s husband, was one of many ship captains and crew sent to rescue overwhelmed settlers onto steamships. Abigail hoped Kate was on one of those ships and not waiting in her attic for rescue. Towns that were a part of Oregon’s young history, like Champoeg where the vote to become a part of America one day and not Britain had taken place, were washed away with nothing to show for what had been there except the memories of the survivors.

And Lafayette’s new warehouse holding 80,000 bushels of wheat—including the Duniways’ bumper harvest—was washed away, along with Amos and Fanny’s store and much of the business district. Abigail sent word when she learned of it, and communication resumed that the Coburns and Cooks—Amos and Fanny—should come to Sunny Hillside where they’d welcome them high above flooding streams.

The warehouse loss devastated the area, but Ben had already lost on the sale of his wheat when he was forced to sell it before the flood for fifty cents a bushel. It was less than the going market rate. But he had to pay that surety debt at 2 percent interest. Abigail wrote of it in her ‘Farmer’s Wife’ column, though she never mentioned Ben by name. The subject was always “the Farmer.” She wrote that the merchant who had purchased the Farmer’s wheat at a bargain price (because the Farmer had a debt to pay) hoped to resell and make a profit. That merchant had lost now too—to the flood. In her column, she wrote of the devastation, how people lost cattle and how surging waters kept them all from beginning repairs. Water. Flooding. Waiting. That was the real force of nature, worse than tornados or fires, because after those, one could begin cleanup and start over without having to wait and obsess about what one would do in the aftermath and what might be salvaged or lost.

They called it the Great Oregon Flood of 1861–62, but Abigail’s trail friend, Shirley Ellis, wrote that a boat was required on K Street in Sacramento and that people had died, washed away, their bodies never found for burial. It was more than an Oregon flood.

“Such a tragedy,” Shirley had written.

“In so many ways,” Abigail wrote back, and didn’t even mention wondering if her novel had ever arrived.

Abigail became even more specific in her next column. She told her readers that the Farmer’s debt amounted to $240 a year and his farm only earned $500 on a good year, so there was little left to support his family. She also complained that the typesetter had made many errors in a previous column but added that “My husband says I ought not to complain about the printer, because he probably couldn’t read my scratchings. I advise the Farmer that people often compliment me when they watch me write before them. He says, ‘They’re looking at your handwriting upside down.’ Perhaps he’s right,” she conceded and hoped the interchange between the Farmer and the Farmer’s Wife brought a bit of joyful relief as people came out of their badger holes to assess what had happened to their landscapes and their lives.

“That last column was a little too personal,” Ben told her. “You ought not mention our debts, and so specifically.” They had put the children to bed, and Abigail worked on another piece to submit to the paper.

“I want people to see that they aren’t alone.” She looked up at him.

“And poke your thumb in my eye?”

Was that why I was specific? “Details give authenticity to a writer’s work.”

He grunted. “A little less truthfulness at my expense could be pleasant.”

She did consider whether she was being unfair or not and decided that she wasn’t.

“It shows that the Farmers, the men, are in charge, and they make the deals, for good or bad.” Abigail said. “Every man and woman can relate to that.”

The flooding aftermath attacked the economy. Jobs disappeared, households split, forest trees fell over roadways, their roots loosened by inundated soils, blocking transports and deliveries. Steamships on the Willamette maneuvered through waterways clogged with debris and changed channels. The school where Jerry and Harvey attended closed down for the term as it tried to recover. Everything wasn’t working out all right. Harvey’s camping site had been swilled away by the greedy river. Damaged sawmills like her father’s hindered rebuilding, both getting logs to the mill and out to building sites. Abigail’s little house in Lafayette had water to the third step leading to the porch but hadn’t been washed away. Her sisters’ families could stay there while they rebuilt.

“At least no water in the basement like there would be back in Illinois,” Abigail said.

“No basements in Oregon,” Ben said. “Another western innovation.”

It was a few weeks into March when her brother Harvey rode up the hillside to the house through a field of daffodils at dusk, a drizzle of rain dripping off his hat.

“You’re not bringing bad news? Jerry and Father are all right?”

“No bad news. Nothing you haven’t already heard,” he said.

“Come on in. Get yourself dry. I’ll tend your horse.” Ben spoke, motioned for Harvey to dismount while his brother-in-law led his mount to their barn. Abigail heard him talking to the animal on the way, then start singing a little tune.

“I read that ‘the Farmer’s Wife’ gave her permission for ‘the Farmer’ to head to Idaho,” Harvey said as Ben returned and put Wilkie in the high chair, his one-year-old legs sticking out like little stumps. His hands reached out to pat his father’s cheeks as he bent to the boy. The men took their seats with Clara, Willis, and two-year-old Hubert perched on a bench side by side. “The Farmer is you, right, Ben?” Harvey took the bowl of beans Abigail handed him. She kept ahold of it just a second longer than she needed, making him pay attention to her and not talk about her as though she weren’t there. Harvey gave her eye contact, said, “Thanks, Sister,” then to Ben he said, “Does it bother you that she’s always putting private things out there for the world to read about in her column?”

“I don’t mind it much,” Ben said. He moved his peas around the plate, didn’t look at Harvey. “It gives Jenny respite, as she calls it, to scribble.”

“Still, a little delicacy wouldn’t hurt. Or a letter informing the rest of the family of the Duniway-doings before we have to read of it in the paper.”

“I never write about you,” Abigail said. “Are you envious?” She set a platter of rice and a chicken she’d butchered onto the table. She cooked it up with dried herbs that Harriet had given her the last time they were together.

Harvey snorted. “At least your farm wasn’t damaged.” He forked a chicken thigh. And ‘the Farmer’ managed to pay his debts.”

Ben winced then. “The Farmer will pay his debts,” Ben said. “Why I’m heading to Idaho to the mines.”

“I wondered if that was true, what the Farmer’s Wife said.”

“The Farmer’s Wife always writes true things,” she said.

“Just not always factual.”

Before Abigail could object, Harvey continued. “I thought I might go with you to Idaho. I’m not taken by the war effort. I think those Southern states have made a mistake, but I don’t think dying to end slavery is the right answer. Negotiations makes more sense. But I thought I’d take a year while the school gets back on its feet and students can return to create needed capital so I can go through the university without having to work at the sawmill.”

“Will you study law?” Ben asked. He passed the platter to Abigail, who had at last sat down.

“Maybe. First a general degree in economics. Then math, English, the usual advanced courses.”

“A woman wouldn’t know ‘usual’ when it comes to the higher education she’s deprived of.”

“Not now, Jenny,” Ben said.

She sighed. No need to be strident at the table. There’d be time for her and Harvey to wrestle over issues later—if either had the energy for it.

Ben said he’d be glad for the company in the mines, though he worried about leaving Abigail with the children, and hired workers to run the farm.

“Send the money,” Abigail said. “We’ll be all right, though missing you more than all the water in the Willamette.”

“I’ll miss you more than all the water in the ocean, Pa,” Clara said.

“Where are you going, Papa?” Willis asked.

“On an adventure, Son.” Ben squeezed his daughter’s shoulder and made his voice light for his children.

For the first time since they’d made the decision for Ben to leave, Abigail realized how much the children would miss him, and they didn’t have the luxury of knowing why he was leaving, sacrificing home and hearth in order to help them all, and yes, make amends for his poor judgment. She let herself feel the pain of the coming separation, then vowed that she couldn’t let those feelings intrude or she would be a puddle when he left and that would upset the children even more. In the same way that she brushed by little joys that she didn’t think she deserved, she tamped down sadness by getting to work.

“Finish up now,” she told the children. “Take your bowls to the sink.”

While Abigail washed the dishes and Clara dried, Harvey caught them up on the news and told tales of daring rescues during the flooding, stories of people helping neighbors, free blacks and Asians helping whites and vice versa, the vitriol of race and politics diminished for a time.

“Disasters bring out the best in us,” Abigail said. “It’s that pioneering spirit, how we have to try new ways when the circumstances force us into different channels.”

“And give a man permission to make mistakes,” Ben said. “I’m told by my carpenter friends that the mark of a true craftsman isn’t that he makes no errors but how well he covers them up so no one notices, that’s the key.”

“A little difficult to do when the carpenter’s wife spreads the error in the newspaper,” Harvey said.

He held a teasing voice, but Abigail noticed Ben’s bearded face turned a little redder, and she thought in the future she ought to increase the good tales she told of the Farmer. Surely his sacrifice of leaving home would be worthy of a column. Maybe even two.