March, 1850
We marched arm in arm through the dark to the station. Shadrach Barnes went on ahead, once in a while turning back to survey us.
I smelled spruces and pines. I smelled cold mountain dirt. And I felt the cool breath of the dark on my face.
“You shouldn’t have struggled,” said Edwards’ wife.
“You poor, bedeviled thing,” said Willets.
The Devil take you to his bed, I did not say to either of them.
I had left Roundot only once. It had been with my parents to visit my cousins who lived up north in Buffalo. That place had been a clanging mess: so much commotion to so little purpose. The train, I remembered, had snaked through the mountains from a point of departure not far off. Pebbles and larger, jagged stones had tumbled away from the tracks into blackness.
The train depot platform at first appeared empty. At the opposite end of it, starkly described beneath the platform’s single lamp, a bell-shaped figure stood and waited. It shifted around to present us its front. Its lace-trimmed black-and-scarlet dress performed an arc about its ankles. Shadrach Barnes was first to greet it. They addressed one another—Professor meet Shape—inaudibly and, I perceived, with solemnity.
Though I wasn’t aware that we had stopped, Barnes signalled for us to make our way forward. I struggled against the hardy matrons, doing my little kick and lift. It was a woman, this was clear, and her dress was plum-coloured, with lacy, black trim.
One of the matrons was bearing a lantern. Every time it rose and dipped it blotted the woman, revealed her again.
“You’re all but a slip of girl, aren’t you, dearie? You never said she’d be so little.”
The way she spoke was mealy-mouthed. I’d never heard her kind of voice—not in Roundot or Buffalo. Even in dreams.
“You’re taking her to sit in parlours, not to serve out years hard labour. I should think that her size wouldn’t matter,” said Barnes.
“I am merely commenting,” she said and knelt down.
The matrons had let go my arms. Up close the woman’s face was broad; her jaw was as hard as a man’s, her teeth square. She wouldn’t have looked that out of place among the other Roundot women. And yet there was a calmness or patience about her. Her eyes were clear yet almost sleepy.
“She will more than do, I think. Mr. Barnes,” she said, “you have my thanks.”
The coal baron’s wife and the minister’s left me, shuffling away from their posts at my sides.
I stood between the woman and the terrors I had come from. Where were my parents? I wanted to run. There was something occurring here and now that could not be reversed or undone, I was certain.
And so, as I felt I must do, I cried out. I cried out pure and loud and long. And cried for so long that Professor Barnes grimaced. His top lip drew up from his teeth.
But she smiled.
“You’re not shy, are you?” she said, warming my cheeks with her palm.