FIFTEEN
Moving and Moving Forward
1864
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“Hang that linen a little closer,” Abigail told Ben. “We want to get as many girls in here as we can but still give them a sense of privacy.”
“Yes, Jenny—Abigail.”
She heard him trying to accommodate her request to not be called by her nickname, one of many adaptations he’d made. Ben didn’t go very far from home these days, no visiting his bachelor friends. At least they had a roof over their heads because Abigail had invested in the Lafayette property, and now the attic was finished and would be a dormitory bedroom for boarders. Ben built a pen behind the house for the chickens so that they still might have egg money. They kept a cow. The dog had stayed with the farm and she missed him. But he would have disheveled the house with his bulk. Another sacrifice they had to make.
Ben gave up the breeding stock, selling his beloved stallions he’d been building a solid bloodline behind. He did so without a word of protest. Penance. Self-imposed. She chastised herself when she snapped at him. She found she liked living in Lafayette full-time, closer to family, finding new ways to make money, relieved of the heavy farm work or chasing coyotes from sheep pens. But oh, how she missed the view!
Ben had managed to find a buyer, so they didn’t have to file bankruptcy to settle the claim. Millard Lownsdale, the son of a man who had brought apples to the Oregon Territory and had made a fortune because of it, bought Sunny Hillside. He planned to expand the orchard and had the capital to do so. Abigail was glad that the land would be nurtured but resented that some had the means to prosper at the expense of those working hard every day who lived on the edge and by some small mistake could fall to ruin.
“If not for you, we’d be there too, Abigail. Penniless. You work so hard.”
She thought to encourage him by saying that the farm brought as much as it did because of his work, his vision of the orchard he’d begun. That she knew he’d sacrificed by going to the mines and that he too had lost dreams along with the farm. But she kept silent, perhaps sending her anger at despicable men, which at that moment included her husband.
Withholding comfort now and then was better than being strident. Even Clara had said once when Abigail snarled at her spouse, “Don’t be mad at Pa. He’s doing the best he can.” Abigail knew he was, and she chastised herself for her attitude, hoped the husband-bashing and self-lashing would not last. She didn’t much like herself for her reluctance to prop him up, but she hadn’t yet learned that not forgiving Ben hurt her as much as him.
“I’ve been working on something.” Ben stared at the egg noodles he swirled on his supper plate, not at Abigail. It was months since they’d moved and life had taken on new patterns. Ben was gone often in the afternoons, and Abigail assumed he was once again visiting with his friends. That was good. She hoped he’d start singing again too. He cleared his throat. “Something that could help with the laundry.”
“One of those Thor washing machines would be handy to have, but we can’t afford it.”
“I’ve made a better one and enough different with the wringer attached and two rinse tubs that Capt John thinks it could be patented.” Ben’s words were tentative.
“Don’t forget to scrub that noddle pan, Clara.” Then to Ben, Abigail said, “So that’s what you’ve been doing. Why, that’s wonderful.” It is!
“I apprenticed with a cooper back in Illinois. Did I tell you that?” She shook her head that he hadn’t. “I’m ready to give it a try here. If you approve, of course.”
“Why would you even wonder. Anything to make laundry easier, though saving for one of those newfangled Thors might have been quicker.”
“Mine has features.” He looked up at her now.
She reached across the table and took his hand not engaged in noodle-shifting. “If you designed it, I’m sure it will be superior to anything on the market. Bring it home. Let me see those features.”
“Thank you.”
Ben pulled his hand from beneath hers, stood, and carried his dishes to the soapy water in the dishpan. “Are you ready for your story, Wilkie?” he asked their youngest. The child nodded his head. He’d been slower to pick up language, though Abigail wasn’t worried. Yet. “You are? Good. I’ll read. You turn the pages.”
“We do it together. You sing, Pa?”
“Maybe.” He smiled at Abigail, kissed the top of her head as he walked by.
“Well, I never,” Abigail said. “It works . . . fine, Ben. Yes, it does.”
“You say it as though you doubted it would.” He’d filled the tubs with water, and a pump heated it so Abigail didn’t have to lift steaming pots of water. She still had to swirl the clothes with a stick, but the heavy lifting was gone. Dirty water drained into a bucket he could carry for watering the garden.
“No. I didn’t doubt you.” But I did, shame on me.
“I’ll eventually work out some kind of trough so you can do laundry in the kitchen instead of outside or in the laundry house. We can put the wastewater on the garden.” He showed her how the rinse tub worked.
“I won’t make much on the sale of each one, but it’ll bring in something now and then.”
She kissed his cheek, dabbed sweat from his forehead with a towel, then wiped her own. “A labor-saving device. It’s wonderful, Ben. I’m proud of you.”
It looked like he might cry.
Abigail rose at 4:00 a.m. in order to prepare the day’s lessons, staying one step ahead of the learners. Ben watched their children too young to attend school, and he’d taken over preparing much of the larger meal of the day. The boarders were fed breakfast and supper. It was a cooperative effort.
“If I’m honest with myself,” Abigail told her sister Kate, “It’s all been good. I love running the school and the bustle of the boarders and having the children know of current events and giving them wise counsel. My counsel, of course.” She clacked her knitting needles, making winter socks.
“A chance to pontificate,” Kate said. “Your forte.” The two sat on the Coburns’ porch while Ben and Captain John smoked, leaning over the back rail.
“It is my métier.” Abigail grinned. “And Ben is such a help with the children and the housework. He doesn’t bat an eye at that broom. And he’s invented a washing machine. It actually is quite useful.”
“I hope you’ve let him know how much you appreciate him.”
“Ha! I know your ways.”
Kate rose from her rocking chair where she’d nursed her youngest, placed her baby in the cradle where a lace coverlet draped nearly to the floor. “You’ve turned your loss into something full of gain, Jenny. Perhaps you’ll worry less now, enjoy your teaching more. And Ben’s assistance. He doesn’t appear as sad about the farm sale.”
She’d noticed that too. He sighed less and even joked with her now and then, when she let him make her laugh. Perhaps inventing something took him from his cellar of sorrow the way writing worked for her.
“I’ve another novel rising in the doughboy.”
“I don’t know when you find the time.”
“Ben helps, as you note.”
To herself, Abigail acknowledged that despite the loss of Sunny Hillside, she was more invigorated now than she’d ever been, stood straighter, and had less pain in her joints, even found time to work on that next novel—when she woke at 3:00 a.m. and gave herself that hour to indulge in pure writing without regard to lesson preparation or boarder breakfasts.
Ben had undertaken the laundry, and she said not a word when she had to replace a button torn off in the wringer because of how he’d fed the contraption that squeezed water from the cloth. He’d even taken out a patent, with her assistance.
She thought about how one of the worst moments of her life—that wretched sheriff’s visit and the sale of that beloved farm—could have resulted in this time of respite. Maggie would have quoted her Scripture, maybe Romans 8:28 about God working for good for those who follow him. Maggie used that verse often enough, even with a brother’s or niece’s death, events so sad Abigail couldn’t imagine how anything good could come of them. But might it mean that even in sorrow, one wasn’t alone. Abigail found Scripture beautiful as a language but never held it to be predictive the way Maggie did, she who could spout its words to support whatever view she held, whatever pain she had to bear. But for this day, in this moment, Abigail would admit that something good had come from the disaster of the farm loss.
As they drove back to Lafayette after visiting Kate and the Captain, Ben said, “Capt John’s offered to loan me use of acreage he’s purchased that I might take up horse training again.” Anticipating her protest, he raised his voice. “I could work out some during the day, help farmers with haying, and still have an hour or two to work breeding stock. I’ve been checking around. Experienced farm hands are sought after.”
How hard it must be for him to think of working for others when once he owned his own place.
“There’s a market for matched white circus horses. You know I’m good with training.” He kept his eyes forward, gave her time to think.
She thought about how he wouldn’t be as available to help with her ventures if he was gone working horses and forking hay all day.
“Are you up to that?”
“Absolutely. I can still fix breakfasts while you study your lessons and be there for supper too. Willkie’s three already. He could sit in on your classes, couldn’t he? I sold another of my washing machines, so we could bring in a helper.”
“Squeeze another bed into the attic?”
“Something like that. Or I could fix up that small room behind the kitchen stove.” He kept his eyes on the road ahead, reins loose in his hands, while the children chattered to each other behind them in the wagon box.
Abigail thought of Kate’s words and the good that had come from the sale. Ben was entitled to a bit of goodness too. “I know that working with horses gives you great pleasure.” And he loves to gab. He needs people around. He doesn’t ask for much. “You’ve earned that, Ben. We’re moving forward in this westering place. We can make it happen.”