Between Earth & Sky (13 page)

I want to paint the priests in their wide hats and vestments on their way to mass, the farmers in their cornfields, the little Indian children at the mission school, the ranchers on horseback, their faces thick with red dust. And I want to paint the sky. Perhaps I will send you these paintings so that you can know my life for yourself.

I am your sister,

Abigail

May 4, 1882

Dear Maggie,

Amy will take the train east, arriving at the station in Richmond on the fifteenth day of August. I am sending you the schedule of her departure and arrival, and while we have been told that the trains are punctual, I cannot guarantee it. Let me know of your plans for meeting her, so that I can give her accurate instructions. She is most excited about the trip and filled with anticipation over the pleasure of meeting, after so many years, her “eastern family.”

Maggie, the fare for the trip was more than I had anticipated, and as much as I long to accompany her, my trip east will have to wait. With the combined costs of our new house and Amy's schooling (despite the generous scholarship, there are a number of costs), we have little to spare. I am only grateful there is enough to send Amy and that she will receive the best possible of educations. If not for the war, both you and I would perhaps have been educated there. What a different world it would have been.

I have purchased cotton broadcloth, linen, and several yards of wool with which to outfit her. We spent several evenings last week bent over my issues of
Godey's,
trying to determine the latest styles. Amy chose a suit with drapery in the back, and I will make her a white blouse and a dark wool skirt. I am enclosing a sketch of the suit so that you can tell me whether or not it is the fashion there. Amy does want to dress in style, and I fear we are behind.

Your Sister,

Abigail

July 10, 1882

Dear Maggie,

Amy has instructions to meet you at the railroad station on August fifteenth at four-thirty in the afternoon. She will be wearing a blue dress and carrying a valise inscribed with her initials. I have told her to notify us of her arrival at once by telegram. Clayton and I will be quite anxious for her.

We have had no rain for six weeks now; the ditches are low. Clayton is sure we will get no more cuttings of alfalfa, as the fields are brown and nearly barren. There was a new family from Alabama that bought land a few miles south of here and built a house this past spring. They stopped by yesterday afternoon and announced they are moving farther west to California. “With no rain, it is like living on a desert,” they told me. “How do you survive?” They had come here as we did, unaware of the peculiar laws that govern water rights and taking for granted that the most precious of resources would always be available.

How do I survive, Maggie? It seems we will never know for certain how much of our water our neighbors use during a drought, but the mere suspicion is enough to cause bad will. And now another family come from the east that will not stay. Except for each other, George and Margaret have only the Spanish-speaking children as playmates. They catch horned toads and snakes and dig in the clay. I hear them singing Spanish songs, and I cannot understand the words. In the evenings they repeat the tales they have heard of animals and treasures, of a boy who was turned into a wolf, of phantom horse riders.

Virginia feels as far away as another continent. But perhaps, through Amy, we two can be reunited. I shall sigh with relief as soon as I get word that she is in your hands.

Your Sister,

Abigail

August 18, 1882

Dear Maggie,

The telegram has arrived, and oh that I were there with you also! I do long for the happy reunion we would make. I cannot convey the depth of my concern after leaving Amy in the railroad car. We pray that she is content while staying with you and that her progress is worthy of the scholarship she has received. Take care of her for me.

Your Sister,

Abigail

December 12, 1882

Dear Maggie,

Amy writes that she will spend a pleasant holiday in your home. I thank you for welcoming her. She writes also of her frequent visits with Mother, who, she tells us, is gracious in every way and has bought her another dress, a silk blouse, and a woolen skirt, and made presents to her of hair ribbons and laces. I had not thought that a young woman attending school would need such ornaments, but Amy writes that fashion is more extravagant in the east. I know you will understand my meaning when I tell you that I am grateful for Mother's attentions but do not want my daughter moved in any way against me.

I have sent a few small things along with Amy's package for your Christmas. Surely, it will be a joyful one.

Your Sister,

Abigail

April 2, 1883

Dear Maggie,

Amy writes that she is content to remain in Stillwater for the summer, continuing her studies. My thanks to you for extending her such a welcome and encouraging her in her work. Indeed, I am blessed to have a family that devotes itself to my child after I have been away these many years. I miss her more than I can write, and have pictured her here during the summer months, painting or sewing with me in the garden, playing with the children, and riding out along the river or to the mesa. But we are just now short of funds (last summer was so dry), and it is best that we hold on to the money that would pay for her ticket.

Nine years we have lived in this valley, and still I do not understand the patterns of dryness and rain. Perhaps there is no discernible pattern, only the certainty that one will lead to the other. We have had little rain all year, each day the sky stretching wide and blue across the valley and over the mountains, the color of heaven. Maggie, it is so beautiful, I cannot curse it as Clayton does at times.

The children are well. Margaret cannot be separated from her brother. She rides a little dappled pony, and George rides his horse. They go everywhere, up and down the valley, along the river, into the mountains. When they are gone long hours in the afternoon, I worry some mishap has befallen them, but they always return safely in time to do their chores, and I think that it must be good to be able to roam under the wide sky. Such freedom is usually reserved for boys. I cannot imagine Margaret without it.

It seems this past year we have all been unusually healthy. Doña Romero says it is the drought, a blessing inside a curse, but I believe one's constitution is strengthened by one's hardships.

Your Sister,

Abigail

August 7, 1883

Dear Maggie,

At last it has rained, torrents all through the past two weeks, breaking over us each afternoon and often throughout the night. It comes too late for the alfalfa, but we will have a small field of beans, our vegetables, and the little corn we managed to irrigate. This has been the longest drought we have had since coming to the southwest. Throughout the winter, spring, and early summer, farmers in the valley slaughtered their animals as there was nothing left to feed them. Everywhere one went, one could see dead pigs, goats, and chickens. “I cannot stand to see any more death,” I told Clayton last spring when we rode past our neighbors and saw their milk cow lying in the yard, its throat cut. Two days later Clayton himself went out and shot the goat Margaret had made a pet of.

When the first rain fell, I was in the house preparing the week's bread for the oven. Clayton and George had ridden out to look with despair on the dried-up ditches, and I had sent Margaret to find the chickens that had disappeared. As I shaped the loaves, I looked outside and saw the darkening of the sky. I told myself that after all these months, it was merely another mirage. And so I did not step out into the yard until the storm was nearly upon us, racing up the valley with the whirling of dark clouds and the explosion of thunder. As I ran through the yard, I heard Clayton and George in the barn, trying to quiet the horses. “Where is Margaret?” I called out, but I could not hear the answer through the wind.

She rode into the barn shortly before the rain began. I saw her from the house in a flash of lightning, bent over the pony's neck, white as an apparition. She had ridden out towards the mountains to watch the approach of the storm, she told us later, and it is a wonder she survived. Had she not been so sure in the saddle, I fear we would have lost her.

Maggie, she is a good girl, really, and spends hours in the fields and helping us with the animals, but she will not sit still long enough to learn to read or embroider. When she is not with George, she is alone, running through the yard or fields or out into the orchard. She begs me to let her take her pony and ride along the river or up towards the mesa, and sometimes I allow it, Maggie, even though she is young. It seems to me she has few amusements. Clayton tells me that given time she will grow into a lady. I only hope he is right and that the desert has not bewitched her.

Yours,

Abigail

September 28, 1883

Dear Maggie,

This has been the strangest of seasons. With the rain has come a late flowering throughout the valley and even out into the deserts and mountains. I cannot adequately describe it, but after so many dry months, the air has thickened with the various fragrances. My good neighbor Señora Teresa Martinez calls it a time of miracles. Another neighbor of ours was working in his fields just after an evening rain, when he was startled by voices above him. He looked into the sky and saw a magnificent balloon.

As he watched, a woman threw an armful of roses, which drifted downward. When the balloon disappeared, he assumed it had been an apparition, but the scent of roses was everywhere, and in his hair he found a soft red petal.

The rain seems to make everything possible. Last Sunday Clayton and I and the children rode out for Reverend Brown's service at the church. The Porters were there, the Sloaners, a new family I had not met, Miss Alden, and several others. It seemed to have been so long since I had seen any of them. What a reunion we had, singing hymns together and later drinking tea, which Miss Alden had brought Our ride home was filled with the strange beauty of the wildflowers and blossoming cacti. Even a few of the trees, confused by the long drought and sudden flood, had burst into white blossoms. “An unusual heaven,” Clayton commented, and I had to agree.

I have made arrangements to send both Margaret and George to the mission school this year. If Margaret remains at home another year, I feel she will turn completely to the wild. She follows George and Ramon, Señora Teresa's son, up towards the mountains, herding goats and sheep. I cannot keep her indoors. The only way I have been able to convince her to attend school is to tell her she will be able to travel to and from school riding on her pony with her brother.

The Catholic priests persist in their attempts to destroy the mission school. They clearly are responsible for a number of Indian children being pulled out of the school and have tried, unsuccessfully, to have the school's land taken away. The school survives mainly due to personal donations from local families and a few of the churches in the east. If not for the Catholics, we would have public schools in New Mexico and not an embarrassingly high number of illiterate, well over half the population. I have heard that many of the mining towns now have public schools. But there are so many Catholics in the valley, I do not think we will see such progress here.

Amy writes that she is doing well in her studies. Please send word at once if she wants for anything. She is young to be so far from her parents, and sometimes, despite the reassurance of your loving care, I become anxious for her.

Your Grateful Sister,

Abigail

December 18, 1883

Dear Maggie,

Amy writes that she grows despondent with the approach of the holiday season. I have no doubt the parties she wrote she would attend will create a more cheerful attitude, but I am anxious for her. Please, Maggie, give her a mother's love and comfort for me. I miss her more than I can express.

I understand that Mother has bought her a dress for the holiday celebrations. Amy says it is made of deep-green velvet, with satin trim and rows of white pearly buttons, and that it is long-waisted, cut in the latest fashion. I do not know of anything that I can make to equal such a dress. All this month I have spent crocheting a lace bed spread and pillow shams. If I can finish them by next week, I will mail them for Amy's Christmas. I have prepared a package for you also, Sister, and will send them together by railroad.

Yours,

Abigail

March 1, 1884

Dear Maggie,

The first of March, and still snow covers the ground like lit crystal under the sun, a blinding slick whiteness covered with a thin sheen of ice. Clayton tried to persuade me to ride out to the mesa with him this afternoon, when the hard crust had softened with a watery beauty, but I convinced him to take George and Margaret, as I am feeling poorly. Perhaps I have only been cold for too long and must climb into my bed until this season passes.