6
Loosening the Reins
Los Angeles, 1894
The house Samuel had arranged for the family to rent turned out to be a tiny cabin in an orange grove at the end of a long dirt road. The grove had once been part of a large ranch whose orchards had been purchased and parceled into lots to be sold. The citrus industry was slowly moving to the Central Valley, leaving a grid of irrigation systems that would turn the scenic floodplain into subdivisions of small farms and sprawling neighborhoods.
Nellie sat on the front porch steps, her children gathered around her. She looked out across the road dotted with yucca, and up into the empty hills. In the dirt yard, the men stood in a tight gathering, smoking cigarettes and belching comfortably after a meal of chili con carne.
Samuel stretched out his hand and pointed to a two story house with a barn in the distance. He swept his arm around in the direction of a smaller house, whose entrance off the road was marked by palm trees. “In time, this will all fill in with houses.”
His brother Charlie pushed his hat back and wiped his forehead. “The American Dream; every house sitting in the middle of a garden with an orange tree in the backyard.”
Brother Jimmy looked over to where the children played jacks on the porch step and trained his eyes on the back of Johnny’s head. When the boy looked up, his uncle waved him over. Johnny dropped his handful of jacks and slipped into the circle between his uncle and his father. Jimmy tousled the boy’s unkempt hair and added his piece to the conversation. “Have you ever tasted an avocado? They grow ‘em down by San Diego. Man, they are tasty. The Mexicans, they smash ’em up with lime juice, onions and tomatoes, salt, other stuff I don’t know—muy bueno.” He kissed his fingertips.
My Johnny looks more like his father every day. Nellie called for her boy. “It’s time to go in now, Johnny. You have homework to finish.”
“Finished it.” Johnny did not turn around. He moved closer to his father, who put an arm around his son’s shoulder and pulled him off balance. John let go just as quickly, causing the boy to stumble. Johnny righted himself and laughed. The two of them reminded Nellie of the mule deer she had seen in the lower elevations of the San Gabriel Forest. In the spring, young bucks sparred with each other, testing their strength. She doubted that Johnny had finished his homework, but without John’s support, there wasn’t much she could do.
The sun beamed low in the grove now. Mabel had gone into the cabin to sit at the table and finish her homework. Nellie led Opal back inside, prepared her for bed, and tucked her into a small cot wedged between the wall and the double bed where Nellie and John slept. The only good thing about this arrangement was that there weren’t likely to be any more children. John was too tired anyway. Forty-three and in his prime, nevertheless long hours swinging a hammer wore him out. After work, he was more likely to replenish his spirits from a bottle of whiskey in the company of his crew or his brothers than he was to come home to Nellie.
Evenings after the children were in bed she sat on the porch step hugging her knees and looking up and down the empty road. In all this open space, how could she feel so confined? It helped when she lifted her head to trace the endless sweep of the star-studded Milky Way across the night sky. She marveled that the galaxy seemed to have no beginning and no end. Tonight was so quiet that if she ceased listening to her complaining heart, she would hear the owl begin her hunt.
Nellie strained her ears to hear the soft hoot. She was rewarded instead with the joyful yip of a lone coyote in the distance. Soon the pup would be joined by others. She felt a tightness in her groin. When was the last time I felt whooping, hollering joy? Tendrils of her hair swished across her cheeks in the night breeze, triggering a memory of the days when she raced her pony across the plains, her loose hair flying. She reached behind her head and undid the pins that fastened her hair, shook it out, let it fall. Another memory shook loose of one night back in Kansas when the children had their own bedrooms. John had been full of hope for their future. Under the covers, he reached for her and all their differences melted away. One timeless moment of slow-dancing what was usually a rushed affair. That night, a guttural sound rose in Nellie that John had never heard before, not from a lady. As close to a whoop and a holler as she supposed she would ever get. It embarrassed them both. It never happened again.
Nellie re-pinned her hair. Far off, the lone coyote set off a chorus of noisy celebrants. What did they celebrate? Freedom to roam and howl and hunt for food, she imagined.
John had promised her that once he built up some savings, they would buy a lot and he would build her a house. She dropped her head into her hands and rubbed her temples. No! No, no, no. It wasn’t the cabin that cramped. If he built her a mansion, like the Queen Annes in Lincoln Heights, she would still feel … what? Soul. Crushing. Boredom. Only sweet moments with her children kept her from despair. That, and the thought that they wouldn’t be children forever. When her job was done, she would still be young.
Nellie released the breath she had been holding. She gave herself to the vast expanse of stars overhead and the symphony of revelers satisfying their hunger in the moonlight. But for the loosening of the reins on her horse, and following the sensations John raised in her that one time, when had she ever felt free? There were times. Listening to Dvorak’s New World Symphony at the World’s Fair took her out of herself. Cresting the top of the Rockies, the sight of nature’s panorama dwarfed and enlarged her at the same time. Thrilling. Longing would kill her if she didn’t find a way to satisfy whatever primal urge compelled her to pace her cage and chew at the lock, instead of her foot.
You don’t have to chew your foot off to be free. Watch. Bide your time. Your turn will come.
R
It was the approaching turn of the century that turned up the heat on Nellie’s plans. They had not argued. Nothing had changed. John continued to work long days at various construction sites and wile away his evenings telling stories at the local tavern or swapping tales with his brothers around the dinner table at one of their homes. Weekends, he took Johnny fishing. He spoke politely to Nellie and did not ask her any questions about how she filled her time.
For her part, Nellie kept a clean house and a full larder. The meals she prepared for her children were nutritious but unimaginative. She mended their clothing, corrected their homework, and dreamed about the day she could slip away, conscience free.
John had made it clear that he would not allow her to work for a salary, but nothing prevented her from volunteering to teach poor young women the Graham method of shorthand so they could get jobs.
Nellie smiled to herself as she recalled the day she pulled a copy of Andrew Graham’s shorthand primer from a moldy box of books. Easterners had sent religious and educational books earmarked for the children of families whose fortunes had withered when locust stripped the wheat stalks bare. While her brothers fought over a copy of The Youth’s Companion, she secreted away the tattered manual full of odd squiggles.
That winter, she assigned herself exercises from the book. She sweet-talked her brothers into reading aloud from The Old Farmer’s Almanac so she could practice transcribing from speech. By her thirteenth birthday, she was proficient enough to accompany her mother to her historical society meetings in Topeka to record the speaker’s comments so Amanda could write them up for the local town newspaper.
Back then Nellie did not consider her wizardry with a pencil much more than a parlor trick to amuse her mother’s friends. Now the world was opening up to young women with secretarial skills who were unencumbered. Approaching her late thirties with Opal still in grade school, Nellie could not count herself young or unencumbered, but her experience teaching night school opened her eyes. She earned the praise of her students and the night school administration for her diligence and quick mind. She gave no hint that she had never employed her skills in the workforce. As the young women warmed to her wit and encouragement, the hope that simmered low in her heart flared. Seeking no advice, saying no prayers, she set Monday, January 1, 1900, as the day she would board a train for the Northwest and begin a new life.