Chapter 17: Another Letter

 

All through August Jenny’s vegetable garden yielded abundant corn, peas, cucumbers, and beans, and the chickens and cow provided eggs and milk. Tanner and Otis kept her supplied with meat and fish in addition to handling the farm work.

Poulette was due to foal any day. Jenny loved the mare, which Mac had bought for her at Fort Laramie the year before.

“Keep her close to the barn,” Tanner told Jenny. “Call me in from the fields if she starts pacing.”

Tanner wanted to harvest the wheat as quickly as possible. “Weather here ain’t like the States,” he told Jenny on the morning of August 24. “Had our first frost last night. Need to git the grain in.”

Jenny was grateful the weather stayed clear for most of the following two weeks. They all worked feverishly to reap the wheat. Tanner did the brunt of the work, aided occasionally by Zeke.

Hatty and Otis helped the men bundle the sheaves and load the shucked wheat into bags and into the wagon. They were too busy to accompany Jenny into Oregon City, but she needed dry goods. Zeke had brought his team to her claim that day, so she hitched Tanner’s mules to the wagon for a trip into town. She and William stopped at Esther’s cabin to pick up Esther and her children.

“I can’t manage both babies and an armful of packages, too,” Esther said. “Let’s take Rachel.” So they stopped at Captain Pershing’s farm for Rachel. The wagon was full before they left for Oregon City.

In town, Rachel took Jonah and William off to play on the green. Esther kept Cordelia on her lap while Jenny drove the wagon toward the stores.

New emigrants from the East already camped in Abernethy Green to the north of town. “Early arrivals,” Esther said. “We didn’t get here till mid-October last year. Remember how wonderful it was to see the town?”

“I remember Mr. Foster’s farm. The dinner they fed us.” Jenny smiled, recalling the taste of the savory vegetables—the first fresh peas and carrots they’d had in months. “And the dance here in town on the green.” She felt Mac’s arms around her again as they had waltzed that night.

“The dance.” Esther’s voice was dreamy. “Daniel and I danced till midnight.” Then her tone sharpened. “And Pa danced with Mrs. Purcell, too—I mean Mother Amanda. I should have seen it coming.”

“Nothing you can do about it now,” Jenny said.

“She’s expecting.”

“Already?” Jenny was surprised. But then, she and Esther both had become pregnant easily.

“She didn’t waste any time. She don’t need another child, and Pa for sure don’t.”

They tied Tanner’s mules to the rail, climbed out of the wagon, and entered Abernethy’s store. As they made their purchases, the clerk told them, “Been another mail delivery. Best check at the postal office.”

Jenny and Esther thanked him, put their bundles in the wagon, and walked down the street to the store that handled mail.

“What’s your papa going to do about school for the children?” Jenny asked Esther as they passed the schoolhouse.

“He says town’s too far to take ’em every day.” Esther sighed. “But the children need schooling. Ma taught us all to read, excepting Noah who was too young. But last winter they didn’t learn nothing. Just sat in the cabin or played outside in the mud. I can’t teach ’em—I’m too busy with Cordelia and Jonah and my housework.”

“What about your stepmother?”

“She has too much cooking and washing, too, she says. I’ll give her this much—she’s a hard worker, and she keeps Pa from drinking. But she has the baby coming. And she don’t know any more book learning than I do.”

“I could hold a school,” Jenny said. “I read most of the books in Papa’s library. History and Shakespeare. I know French and English grammar and literature, though Papa had only just started me on Latin when he died. I can do arithmetic, but not algebra.”

“How’d you have time for so much studying?”

“It was easy, until Papa became ill. I could make time this winter to teach. I have Hatty to help with the house. And my cabin is closer than town for your brothers and sisters.”

“Would you really open a school?” Esther beamed and took Jenny’s arm. “Could you handle all the children?”

“How many would there be?” Jenny thought out loud. “Rachel, if she’s not too old. Jonathan, David, Ruth, and Noah. The three Purcell children. And Otis.”

“Otis?” Esther said. “You’d teach a Negro with the other children?”

“He can sound out his letters. I’ve heard him. Letitia, our slave back home, could read. I couldn’t leave Otis out when his parents are helping me. But I don’t have books, other than a Bible.”

“We brought some books in our wagons last year,” Esther said. “And the Abercrombies have a few. Maybe Daniel’s nieces would come, too.”

Jenny’s heart sank at this, because it meant more ties with Daniel’s father, Samuel Abercrombie—the man who had caused so much dissension along the trail. But she couldn’t exclude his grandchildren from her school because she didn’t like him. “Talk to your folks,” she said. “I’ll talk to the Tanners about Otis and about making some benches for the children to sit on. My cabin would be crowded, but I think I can manage.”

“How would we pay you?” Esther asked.

Jenny shrugged. “We’ll work out something. Talk to your papa.”

At the mail delivery counter, Jenny found another letter waiting for her, this one addressed to Geneviève McDougall. Her heart leapt—it looked like Mac’s handwriting. It was all she could do not to tear the letter open right away, but she wanted to be alone when she read it.

“Is it from Captain McDougall?” Esther asked.

“I think so,” Jenny said.

“Are you saving it for yourself?” Esther teased, a grin on her face.

Jenny nodded, unable to return Esther’s smile.

That evening she fidgeted during supper with the Tanners, wanting to see what Mac had said. As soon as they left for their cabin, Jenny eagerly broke the seal on the letter. A paper folded inside floated to the floor. She picked it up—a financial document of some type—and set it aside to examine after she read Mac’s letter. Her hands shook as she read.

California! Mac had stayed in California. He was only weeks away from her, not months or a year. He was mining gold. But he offered no hope he would return to Oregon—he still planned to go to Boston. Jenny stifled a sob.

Jenny reread the letter, more slowly this time. Mac apologized for his advances the night he left. She remembered his arms around her, and again she wished she had responded. It wouldn’t have been so bad. If Mac needed her, she should have yielded. Maybe then he wouldn’t have left.

He wrote he would find a way to free her. How would he do that?

Jenny sniffed when she read Mac’s comment about Zeke. Zeke was a good man. But he wasn’t Mac. She’d told Mac she didn’t want any man. She wondered again whether she should have married him when he’d asked. Now she’d have to live without him—as she’d done for many months already.

He wrote the land was hers. Could he give her the land in a letter? She would need to talk to Doc again.

The paper Mac had enclosed was a letter of credit, whatever that was—more money, Mac wrote. Jenny should take it to the store and see what the storekeeper would do. But she didn’t want Mac’s money. However unreasonable it was, she wanted Mac—any way she could have him.

After William was in bed for the night, Jenny wrote in her journal:

 

September 2nd—Finally, a letter from Mac—from California. Much closer than Boston, but he does not say he will return.

I have offered to teach school to children on nearby farms. Perhaps I can earn my living without Mac’s money, even if I lose the land.

“What did Captain McDougall say?” Esther asked when Jenny visited the following week.

“He’s in California. Prospecting. He’s staying there before heading to Boston.”

“California—will he see Joel?”

“I don’t know,” Jenny said. “California’s a big place, I think.”

“But he’ll be gone even longer,” Esther said. “How will you manage?”

Jenny shrugged. “I have the farm and soon the school.”

“It’s worse’n when Pa was in the Army leaving Ma and us young’uns alone.” Esther sighed. “What else did he say?”

“Only private things,” Jenny said. She had hidden Mac’s letter under the floorboard in the loft with his money. She hadn’t told anyone what Mac had written, nor had she talked to Doc yet about the letter of credit or the land.

Jenny made a small berry tart for William for his first birthday. She and the Tanners clapped and sang. The little boy grinned at everyone paying attention to him.

In the evening Jenny wrote:

 

Saturday, September 16th—It is William’s birthday. Last week he started walking, though he clutches my finger for safety. He is such a joy. I would not have my son, and I might have died myself, if not for Mac.