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Undying Love

Would they live and Die for one another

By: Linda Wright

Undying Love

Summer days were always slow and lazy back home. Why I can remember one only worried about time, was to not be late for Sunday service. Our farm was quite a ways from town, but there was a short cut across the small stream that ran through the Gower farm.

     Col. Carter Hamilton Gower was one of the wealthiest men not just in the town but the whole county. I had only seen his farm from afar but it was beautiful. The Col. and his wife Miss Leta were fine folks, and always willing to help their neighbors. They gave to the poor in the town and always willing to give to the church. But they also knew where they stood on the social class of the town. Ms. Leta always made sure her dreams for her son were for him to attend West Point like his father.  Yet here I was trying to get to the service before the first hymn was sung  since I was usually running late to get to service and usually would cut across the stream. Heck I had been doing it for years and saw no reason to stop. I got to the stream and decided to take off my shoes, tie them over my shoulder, pick up my dress and start to wade across. I didn’t see the figure sitting across under the tree. Then I heard him laugh and knew it was Nathan Gower skipping Sunday service again. His mama and pa have tried to get him to go to church but Nathan well he seemed to like fishing on Sunday mornings more than hearing the reverend preach. Everyone knew that Col. loved that boy and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for him. As for me well I have loved Nathan since the first time I saw him I was  in first grade and he was in third. The first time he smiled at me I knew one day I would marry him; mind you I was six years old at the time. It was something about him, his hair was the color of a beige white a real tow head and his eyes, there were the mystery they weren’t blue but more of a gray, but so light without the pupil there one would think his eyes were only white. He was even at age eight a handsome boy. Here he was now at eleven and still with the tow head and he’s now added a smile that would melt any girl’s heart and often did. We never seemed to think that one day we would have to go our own ways. This was the eighteen hundreds and there was this thing called social class and one to remember their place in society. Many of the families here have they lineage traced to the first settlers and Ms. Leta was one of them who never let you forget it. But today we didn’t seem to care about any class we were just two kids by that stream.  He got up and moved closer to the streams bank.

  “Hey Darcy you fixing to cross the stream in that dress of yours?”

   “Well it’s the only way I can get across Nathan; I don’t want to be late for church.”

  He took off his shoes and stepped into the stream and made his way toward me. He slowly made it to the other side and toward me.

    “Nathan Gower what do you think you’re doing?”

    “Now girl just get on my back. I’m gonna   carry you across wrap your legs around my waist and your arms around my neck.”

I climbed on his back and clung to him as we started across.

    “Are you sure you can do this? My ma would wop me good if I miss service, not to mention get my clothes dirty.”

     “Just hold on Darcy. Don’t worry I won’t drop you my pa would wop me if I did.”

Slowly he made his way to the other side of the stream. Once the other side at last he put me down and I began to put my shoes on. Nathan went back to his fishing pole and sat down.

   “Thank you Nathan.”

    He gave me a smile,

     “See you in school tomorrow.”

      “Yea see you tomorrow.”

            I continued my way to church and got there just in time. As I entered the doors I saw my parents and grandma sitting off to the left and walked over to them. Grandma was the only one who seemed to notice my braids were slightly at the bottom, but then again they were half way down my back. Through the whole service I kept thinking about Nathan still fishing by the stream. Ture I wished I could be there with him, but I knew if I had stayed my pa would wop me good. As the service ended I was ready to head back to the stream when my father stopped her. He noticed I had taken my shoes off as I left the church.

    “Are those your shoes I see around your neck Darcy?”

    “Well sure pa I always take them off when I leave church.”

    “Are you telling me Darcy Christine Meadows that you do this all the time? Walk the streets of this town bare footed like some homeless waif? You get in this wagon and not another word until we get home.”

   “ But pa.”

    “ Not another word.”

   I knew that asking to walk home was out of the question now. I knew the only thing to do was to just sit and wait to get home.  It was my ma who tried to calm my father down.

   “John she hasn’t done anything wrong. She only takes them off to spare them. It’s not something wrong.”

  “Mary she was walking barefoot! I can’t believe my child walking in the streets of town on a Sunday bare footed. Why it’s. It’s so wrong. Makes it looks like I can’t afford to put shoes on my daughters feet.”

   “ Oh hush John you’re making a scene. No one is thinking that of you. Half the children go around barefoot and no one thinks anything of  it”

For the next half hour ride back to ranch no one said a word but I could feel my grandma’s eyes on me as I kept my head down.

     I never knew that Nathan had waited for me to come back until he told me the next day at school. It soon became a regular meeting place on Saturday afternoons. Since I had church on Sunday mornings and I had to go in with the family since pa caught me with my shoes off. Nathan liked to fish and I found it a place I could relax and read. It soon became known to us as our stream. A special place for best friends, and that’s what we were best friends. It was a secret place that only we shared and I always felt that whatever happened Nathan was there to be by my side.

   As the clouds rolled by so did the years and soon we were not those young kids anymore.  We were growing up and facing adulthood in Virginia had its drawbacks.  That Nathan and I who had been friends for years now it was looked down upon. It wasn’t Nathan it was me. Well seems my grandma’s great grandma was the daughter of a Cherokee warrior a chief he was. Well t seemed that something like that even all those years back was still frowned upon. Well in society that is. I asked my grandma once about that and she told me this.

   “Darcy, when I was a young girl, my mama told me a story about a young man who was found half frozen in the woods by this tribe of Cherokee. Seems he was a hunter and somehow got lost in the storm and just seemed to wander until poor young fella was completely lost. Well you know how cold it gets in the winter well he was half frozen when my great grandfather took him to the village. Not many of the women had seen a white man before and they thought his beard was rather strange. I suppose I would too if I had never seen a white man. “

  “Why did they find his beard so odd grandma?”

  “ Well you have to remember Indians don’t have beards dear. Anyway back to the young man. He stayed with my great grandfather my grandmother helped nurse him back to health. If it wasn’t for my great grandfather finding him that day I wouldn’t be here. “

  “ Grandma you mean it was your grandmother who…?”

   “Yep my grandpa was a white man the same white man who almost froze to death that winter.”

“ Was he handsome grandma?”

  The old woman looked at her granddaughter and smiled.

    “Oh I suppose you’d call him handsome. My mother always said he had a smile that would charm the spirits but it was a nice smile. She always said that’s why she fell in love with him. Oh I know it sounds silly but I do believe it was love at first sight, and I think it he fell in love with her the same way. They came from such different cultures yet he loved her and they were married by the chief. Their marriage lasted thirty years and she bore him three children yet only I made it through infancy  the others died before they could walk. He was killed by a drunk one Saturday night. He had gone into town to sell some of his firs, he was heading out of town when some cowboys were in town celebrating they were shooting their guns and well grandpa was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  They never even saw him they were just shooting what they though was in the air. No one knew which gun really was the one that shot him but grandpa was dead in any case.“

Tears started to roll down her cheeks as she continues.

    “He never got to see me grow up, he would have been so proud. The only memories I have of him are what she told me. I was just a baby when he passed.’’

     It soon became a weekly thing as I would come down to the stream every Sunday and Nathan would carry me across to the other side and she would then go off to service.  After  Sunday  service I would return to the stream and both of them would enjoy lazy afternoons just enjoying each other’s company. They spoke of hopes, dreams, and just watched as clouds roll by. It was one afternoon while we were watching the clouds Nathan looked over to me and told me he loved me. We were best friends and as I thought best friends loved each other, maybe he didn’t mean it but it was the first time he said it.  But it would not be the last time. I remember I answered him with that I loved him too and I would love him always and forever. From that moment always and forever became a saying just for us and we meant it then and the years that followed.

   The year I turned fifteen things began to change, gone were the braids and it was replaced by my hair just hanging down my back, mind you it was almost to my waist. The awkward young tomboy was blossoming into a young lady and Nathan liked his what  his best friend was turning into. The biggest social event of the year was going to be the spring dance. It was what every girl in town was not only talking about but was going to. Miss Ackers the seamstress was busy trying to keep up with all the orders. She had asked my ma to help her with all the dresses. It was extra money for the house and it was Miss Ackers who gave ma the material to make my dress. Well she had asked my ma if I was going to the dance and when my ma said I didn’t have a dress it was Miss Ackers who picked out the material and gave it to my ma to make it for me. I couldn’t believe my eyes when ma came home with this material. It was the most beautiful material I had ever seen. It was a coppery silk with gold thread inter twined in the material. No one would have anything like it. I stood in front the mirror just admiring the dress as grandma and was finishing up the hem of the dress.

   “Oh ma it’s so beautiful.”

I swirled around and the gown just floated across the room with me. Grandma’s   eyes sparkled as she watched me smile at my image.

   “So Darcy are you ready to have all the men ask to dance with you?”

   I looked at her then reality hit.

“I don’t know grandma I’ve never been onto have men flock to me.”

  “Don’t be silly Darcy, why you’re beautiful, you have the prettiest dress and no one has one like it, what man wouldn’t ask you to dance with him? Why I even will say you are prettier that your mother was at that age.”

  “Well we’ll see about that, and I think ma was much prettier. I could never be as pretty as her.’’

I didn’t have the heart to tell grandma I didn’t know how to dance. Never seemed something I needed to learn. I never thought I would ever be going to a dance.  I quickly took the dress off and headed for the stream. I wanted to tell Nathan about my dress. When I got there I saw him under the tree.  No matter how many years had passed I always knew Nathan would be there waiting for me under that tree. I took off my shoes and rolled up my pants and like the first time Nathan would carry me across the stream and we’d sit on the other side and spend the afternoon enjoying each other’s company. I looked at the fishing pole and smiled back at him.

   “Hey Nathan did you get any fish?”

    “No, but I wasn’t really trying. I was just sitting here waiting for you to show up.”

  I looked at him

  “You seemed pretty sure I’d be here weren’t you?”

    “Well seeing the look on your face I’m glad I am here. What wrong Darcy?”

     I looked at him I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tell him but since he was the one to bring it up I decided to tell him.

   “Well there’s this dance in two weeks.”

    “I know everyone is talking about it are you going?”

    “Well yea but I well I have a problem  ...”

     “Oh I know you need someone to take you. No problem I’ll be happy to take you.”

       I looked at him with a glare in my eyes.

      “Nathan! Can you just let me finish the sentence? I can’t dance.”

     “You can’t dance?”

      I looked at him and his question seemed to hurt me more than if he had laughed.