Chapter 9: Uncertainty and Change

 

It was the end of April before Jenny talked to Doc Tuller. She and the Tanners were in Oregon City for Sunday services, and afterward she pulled Doc aside. She greeted him, then asked, “Doc, if Mac never returns, can I keep his claim?”

“You don’t expect him to come back, do you?” Doc’s bushy eyebrows knit together in a frown. “You told him you wouldn’t marry him.”

Doc and Mrs. Tuller never let her forget their advice. “I couldn’t. You know that.”

“It would have been best for you and William.”

She wished they wouldn’t keep harping on the matter—it was too late to change her mind, even if she wanted to. “What rights do I have now?”

Doc shrugged. “As his wife, you might have something, but as it is, you probably don’t. McDougall filed the claim in his name. Women can’t claim land. It’s his responsibility to improve it.”

“If I make the improvements, can’t I stay on the farm?”

“I don’t know, girl. I doubt the legislature ever contemplated a situation as unlikely as yours.”

“What if I were a widow? Surely they don’t throw widows off their husband’s claims.”

“But you’re not,” Doc said. “And won’t be, since you didn’t marry. And I’ve heard the inheritance laws ain’t set here in Oregon yet. Don’t know what would happen.”

Jenny clutched Doc’s arm. “The land is all William and I have. Would you see what you can find out?”

Doc nodded. “It’ll take some time. I can’t be too direct. You don’t want gossip, do you?”

Jenny shook her head, biting her lip.

That night she wrote:

 

Sunday, April 30th—Doc doesn’t think I have any rights to the land, though he will inquire.

Maybe I should have married Mac last fall, if only for William’s sake. But I couldn’t. And now I might be left with nothing.

In the days after Joel left, the weather turned wet and cold. The green fields turned yellow. “Never seen so much rain,” Tanner told Jenny. “Wheat’s drowndin’ in the fields. Don’t know what it’ll do to our crop come summer.”

William seemed to grow bigger and heavier before her eyes. Every week he outgrew more clothes. Sometimes Jenny wondered which of her attackers had fathered her son. When she did, she turned her mind instead to how much the baby looked like her papa. Blue eyes, hair a shade lighter than her own, and a sweet smile—except when he was teething and cranky. William was hers, and no one else’s.

Besides her land rights and the rain, Jenny had another worry—what would she do if the Tanners left? She didn’t ask either Tanner or Hatty what their plans were, and they said nothing to her. Maybe Mrs. Tuller was wrong. Maybe they would stay.

By mid-May Jenny could no longer tote William around and do her chores at the same time. She frequently found herself taking him to Esther’s, or inviting Esther with Cordelia and Jonah to her cabin, so they could share caring for the three babies as they worked. At ten months, Jonah wasn’t walking yet, but he could crawl anywhere and needed constant supervision. William, at eight months, scooted after Jonah wherever the older baby went.

One morning Esther arrived in her wagon with both children—Jonah tied into the wagon bed with a rope around his waist, and Cordelia asleep in a sling across Esther’s chest. Jenny hurried to lift Jonah down and saw Esther in tears, her mouth a thin angry line.

“What’s wrong?” Jenny asked, while Tanner tied Esther’s horse to the fencepost.

“Pa,” Esther said, wiping her face.

“Was he . . . ?” Jenny didn’t want to ask if Captain Pershing had been drinking again.

“He’s getting married.”

“Married? To whom?” Captain Pershing had been devastated by the loss of his wife, who’d died of childbirth fever after Jonah was born.

“Mrs. Purcell.” Esther flopped down in Jenny’s rocking chair and rocked Cordelia furiously.

Jenny put Jonah on the floor with William and handed him a straw doll. “Mrs. Purcell? But why?”

“I don’t know,” Esther sobbed. “He and Zeke came over after supper last night. Pa told me then.”

“What did Zeke say?”

“Nothing. Not a word. All Pa said was the younger children needed a mother. They’re getting married in Oregon City in two weeks.” Esther dried her eyes with Cordelia’s blanket. “I’ve been doing all I can to help Pa since Ma died.”

Jenny knelt beside Esther. “Of course you have. You’ve been like a mother to Jonah.”

“No one can take Ma’s place. How can he do this?”

“Your papa’s a man, Esther. He needs someone to help. The housework and children are too much for Rachel.”

“But Mrs. Purcell’s bringing three children of her own.”

“Maybe that’s why she’s marrying him,” Jenny said. “She’s lived in town all winter in a ramshackle house even Tanner could hardly make sound. A widow can’t do much to earn her keep. Her children need a father as much as your papa needs a wife.” The Purcells had been in the same wagon train, and Mr. Purcell had drowned on the Big Vermilion River, when he tried to save his youngest child. The boy lived, but the father died—the first of many deaths along the trail.

“It ain’t even been a year since Ma died.” Esther sounded angry, but Jenny thought she was mostly sad.

“Oregon’s different, Esther. We’ve seen girls of twelve, even younger, married to men in their forties. Men have been hanging around Rachel all winter. It’ll be better to have a grown woman in the house.”

“No one can take Ma’s place,” Esther said again.

After Esther left, Jenny wrote,

 

Saturday, May 20th—Captain Pershing is marrying Mrs. Purcell, and Esther doesn’t like it. Her mother was a dear woman, whose death was a great loss to us all. But poor Mrs. Purcell suffered tragedy as well. Maybe some good can come from both families’ grief.

Two weeks later, on Sunday, June 4, 1848, the Pershings and many of their friends from the wagon company drove into Oregon City to the Methodist church, where Franklin Pershing and Amanda Purcell were united in matrimony. Esther and Rachel cried—remembering their mother, Jenny supposed. And maybe wondering how their family would stay together. Zeke stood beside his father looking grim.

At a supper after the wedding at the Pershing home, Jenny asked Zeke, “How will everyone fit into this house?” It was bigger than Jenny’s cabin, but still only three rooms downstairs with a loft above the back two rooms.

Zeke shrugged. “I built a room in the barn on my claim. I’m moving there. Let my three younger brothers and little Henry Purcell have the loft here. The four girls will share a downstairs room. By winter, I’ll build my own cabin.”

“Do you wish you’d gone to California with Joel?”

Zeke shook his head. “I’ve had enough travel. I don’t have the wanderlust, like Joel. I’ll keep farming. Oregon has good land.” He smiled down at Jenny. “What about you? Do you wish you’d gone back East with Mac?”

“No,” Jenny said. “There’s nothing there for me.”

Except Mac, she thought. Except Mac.