The Ballad of Lucy Whipple (15 page)

Mama sitting down in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday? When there was supper to make? "Mama, you're not dying, are you?"

Mama laughed. "No, child. Quite the contrary. I am most wonderfully alive." I looked at her closely. She did look mighty lively, with roses in her cheeks and light in her eyes, and her hair gathered softly at the nape of her neck. "I just want to talk to you."

"What have I not done now?"

"Nothing, Lucy. It's just that..." Mama took a deep breath and went on. "We've been seeing for a while now that Lucky Diggins is dying. Folk are moving on, going north, west, back home. Maybe it's time for us to look to moving on, too."

My stomach turned bottom side up. My heart's desire! Home to Massachusetts!

"Clyde, Brother Claymore, has come back," Mama continued. "He prayed on this long and hard and has come to a decision. He'll be going to the Sandwich Islands, to work with the heathens, though Clyde says he thinks there may be more heathens in New York City than all the South Sea Islands combined." Mama smiled, patting her hair into place. "And he wants us to go with him—you, me, Prairie, and Sierra. So there we will be, heading west again, toward the setting sun, all of us together. Isn't that some news?"

I was horrified. "The Sandwich Islands? Mama, I want to go back to Massachusetts, not to some islands out in the middle of the ocean. Please, Mama, can't we just go home?"

"Well, Miss Lucy, here's how I see it. There's worms in apples and worms in radishes. The worm in the radish, he thinks the whole world is a radish. But not me. I know there is more, more than Massachusetts, more than California. Why, before we left Buttonfields, if I could have seen all the dishes I would wash in California and all the bread I would make and all the sheets I would wash all piled up, I would have lain down and died right there. Now I have a chance to leave the dishes and the sheets and see the apple. And I'm going to take it."

She stopped, smiled again, and said, "There's more. Clyde wants me to go as his wife."

I stared at Mama.

"Well," Mama continued, "what do you think?"

"I think I do not believe what I am hearing. The Sandwich Islands! Marry Clyde Claymore! Mama, you said you were not in the mood to marry anyone!"

"Minds, like diapers, need occasional changing," said Mama. With that she got up, gave her head and her skirt a shake, and headed for the cookstove.

I ran down to the river, tears pouring down my face. The Sandwich Islands! Someplace more remote and deserted even than here! Uprooted again. Leaving behind what little there was that was dear and familiar! And even worse, Mama getting married! What about Pa, waiting in Heaven for Mama and her married to someone else? How could she?

I flopped onto the riverbank, stuck my feet into the mucky water again, and thought about Pa—Pa holding me tight so I could wade in the ocean without being too scared; Pa and me standing hand in hand, with our coats on over our nightshirts and our heavy snow boots unbuckled, watching the rabbits dance in the moonlight. I recalled the touch of his rough hands and his even rougher beard and remembered him coming home after a time in Boston, and Mama running to him across the field, her face filled with love and longing, and Pa's face ... Pa's face ...

I couldn't remember his face! Prairie was right. "I know he had red hair and a bristly beard," I whispered, "but I cannot really see his face. Oh, Pa..."

I cried for a spell, and it wasn't until I stopped making weeping noises that I thought I heard Pa's voice talking to me, telling me the way he always did, "Look, California, look.

"Look at your mama," he went on. And I saw again Mama sorting out and throwing out and giving away most of what we owned, leaving memories and dreams and love behind in Massachusetts and carting all of us to this place where she was nearly the only woman and responsible for everything we put in our mouths or on our backs. I saw Mama in her old black dress sewing by candlelight long after I'd gone to bed and fanning the fire in the morning long before I was astir. I saw Mama's face when Brother Clyde brought Butte back, draped over the back of a mule; when she talked to Pa in the moonlight; when she told me about Clyde and the Sandwich Islands and being his wife.

By the time I returned to the boarding house, all worn out from crying and looking and listening, it was suppertime. Mama and Clyde, Prairie and Sierra, were at the makeshift table, grabbing mugs of this and passing platters of that. Sierra was saying, "I think in the Sandwich Islands sandwiches must grow on trees."

Brother Clyde laughed and said, "Almost right, little dearie; they do have breadfruit trees." I walked over to him and pulled his sleeve.

He looked up, big smile on his face and big hands holding a hunk of acorn-meal cake near the size of Boston. He saw it was me and his smile faded.

Clearing my throat, I said, "Brother Clyde, Mama told me about the Sandwich Islands and you and her. I've been thinking, and I know ... I mean, I love my pa and ... I mean..." I cleared my throat again; by that time the entire table was silent, waiting to hear what in thunder I
did
mean. "In a way you're already part of this family. If I can't have my real pa, I guess I'd rather you than anyone. But I can't call you Pa."

Mama started to say something, but Brother Clyde gently touched her arm. "Thank you entirely for the welcome, missy. I'm mighty pleased to be part of this family. And I don't expect you to call me Pa. Why don't you just call me Brother? Growing up I had seven sisters and they all called me Brother. It seemed natural to be Brother Clyde when I took up the Lord's work, and I'd be right proud to be Brother to you, too."

"I can't say I think much of this Sandwich Island plan," I added, "but if Mama wants to go, I guess we go." Then I leaned down, kissed his cheek, and ran for my bed, where I alternately cried and slept until morning, feeling every so often Mama or Brother Clyde or both of them together smooth my covers and touch my hair. "You were right, Pa," I whispered to the red-bearded man whose face I could not see.

S
UMMER
1852

In which I say good-bye

Brother Claymore prepared to make his rounds about the mountains and the rivers again, this time to raise the money to take us to the Sandwich Islands. "Full as I am of the spirit of God, I feel I could swim there and live on locusts and wild honey like the prophets of old, but I can't ask that of my family," he told Jimmy, as they tied Clyde's belongings onto tiny Apostle. "I know my brother miners will want to help send forth to the glory of God me and these innocent children and my wife-to-be, the lovely Mrs. Whipple."

"Sister Whipple," Mama said. Then, her eyes bright and merry, "Sister Claymore." After Brother Clyde left, Mama spent an unseemly amount of time looking off into the distance and sighing.

I would have liked to write to Gram and tell her about the fire, Mama marrying Clyde, and my banishment to the Sandwich Islands, where I would face a future going barefoot and eating coconuts like Robinson Crusoe. But I couldn't. I had no paper, no ink, and no Snowshoe to carry a letter to San Francisco. So instead I climbed up the ravine as far as I could on the path soggy with ash and mud, and called to her: "Gra-a-a-am, it's me, Lu-u-cy. I ne-e-e-ed you." I knew she couldn't hear me, but I felt better anyway. I added, just in case, "Please send some a-a-a-pples and chicken ste-w-w!"

July came to Lucky Diggins while Mama waited for Brother Clyde to return and I just waited. Meanwhile, a miracle was bringing books back to me, books that had survived the fire because they had not been in the boarding house but in some miner's tent far up the river, books that arrived from Sacramento or San Francisco, sent by someone who had borrowed one in the past and wanted to replace what was lost, books handed from miner to miner over the unpassable mountains. I sniffed them, read a little, packed them in a potato sack, and waited some more.

"If we're going to go, I wish to goodness we'd just go," I told Lizzie one day while we sewed a patch on the ceiling of the tent.

"You don't sound too happy about going."

"Doesn't seem to matter."

"I guess you're not much for adventures. Are you afraid?"

"Yes, I'm afraid. I'm afraid I'll never get home to Massachusetts now. The Sandwich Islands must be half a world away."

"So don't go," Lizzie said.

"And I sure don't look forward to another boat trip and starting all over again to make friends and settle in."

"You know, you don't
have
to go."

"Well, of course I do. I have to go. Don't I?" I said to Lizzie. Don't I? I said to myself.

Lizzie looked at me in a way that made me desperate to change the subject.

"Who is more handsome, Rusty or Snoose McGrath?" I asked her.

"The Gent," answered Lizzie.

"Well, of course you'd say that. You're sweet on him."

"Rubbish," said Lizzie. "How about you, Miss Lucy? Who do you think is handsome?"

"Nobody here. All boneheads and bandits." I thought sometimes about falling in love, but only late at night in the dark where no one could see me blush. I could imagine Ivanhoe and Rowena kissing and making sweet noises to each other, but Lucy Whipple and some miner? Not likely. "Anyway, I'm off to the Sandwich Islands, where I'll probably marry a coconut farmer and eat dried fish and never have a new book to read." I pushed the needle so fiercely through the dingy canvas that I near sewed my finger to the tent and faced having to stay in Lucky Diggins until one of us rotted away.

"Those books sure mean a lot to you," Lizzie said later as she left. "I can think of lots of things I'd miss more than books if I was dragged across the ocean to some island."

"Who's going to what island?" It was Belle Scatter-that-was, cradling a puny, red, squalling infant in her arms. Little fond as I was of Belle, hers was the first new face I had seen since the fire. I made Belle sit down and tell me about her married life and what in tarnation she was doing back in this Godforsaken ash heap and had she brought chicken or cheese or paper and pens, while I took and comforted the baby. Belle obviously still needed more practice.

"There's some boxes over to my Pa's tent," said Belle. "Me and Mr. Rush and Fanny Melinda came to visit and say good-bye. Too many lawyers coming to California. Besides, I think it's no fit place to rear a child, so we're going east, to New York." Belle's face was as shiny bright as a new skillet. "Imagine, New York. Indoor privies and horse-drawn carriages and big hats with flowers."

Back east. While I was heading into
Robinson Crusoe
country, Belle was going to New York to wear a big flowered hat in her indoor privy!

She moved to take Fanny Melinda back, and the baby started up her squalling and fussing again. "Seems to me," I said, bouncing the little mite, "this little one is a mighty big handful. How are you going to manage her all the way across the country to New York?"

"Well," Belle said, with a cunning look on her face, "that's why I come over here to see you. I know you been hankerin' to go back to Massachusetts since you got here. What about you leaving with us? If your mama says yes, we would chaperone and pay your way in exchange for your being nursemaid to Fanny Melinda." She smiled at the baby in my arms, and the baby started to scream again.

"Belle! Truly?" I danced Fanny Melinda around that tent as if we were at the Governor's Ball. "When? Oh, when would we go?"

"After trekking in on that measly, burned-out path, I don't hanker to trek on out again. We'll wait until wagons can get through; should be soon now. Week or two or three."

Didn't sound so soon to me, but it was the best offer I had got in a long time. We shook hands on the deal and I danced all the way home. I was going back to Massachusetts!

"Hallelujah and good-bye, California!" I called. "Good riddance to ash and dust and mud. Good-bye, yellow hills and dry, cracked earth, pinecones and acorn cakes, evergreens, mountain peaks, and blue blue sky! Good-bye, Goldometers and Rattlesnake Jake," I added, laughing, "and the dag diggety miner in his union suit. Good-bye long soft autumn nights and the smell of pines and the hills ablaze with poppies." My dancing got slower and quieter. "Good-bye, Jimmy and Lizzie and the Gent..." I sighed and went the rest of the way in silence.

When I got home, there was Brother Claymore back, sitting on the floor of the tent, head in his hands. Mama was saying, "It don't matter, Clyde. We don't need to go anywhere; we can get married and open the boarding house again." He looked stricken, so Mama took a breath and said, "Or we can wait until you raise the rest of the money. I know there aren't many people around, and those that are can't give like they used to, but we're not old. We can wait a year or two." And at that they both looked stricken.

"Mama," I said, "you don't need as much passage money as you thought. I'm not going with you. I have made arrangements to go back east with Belle Scatter. I'm finally going home, Mama!"

It was quiet as spring rain. You couldn't even hear breathing. I finally said, "Mama?"

"Clyde will get the rest of the money. He can sell Apostle. When he comes back, we must all be ready. Now Lucy, have you—"

"Mama? Didn't you hear me?"

"I heard wind stirring the trees, squirrels chattering over nuts, the river rippling through the rocks. I did not hear a foolish thing like you saying you're not going with us."

"What about my standing like a tub on my own bottom?"

"You can stand like a tub just fine in the Sandwich Islands, thank you very much. Now no more talking about it."

"But Mama..."

"But Mama nothing. I swear when I die that will be carved on my tombstone. 'But Mama.'"

"Mama, sit down. I want to say something."

"Lucy, I don't have time for your wobblies."

"Mama, sit!" And which of us was more surprised when Mama obeyed I couldn't tell. "Going west again is Brother Clyde's dream, and yours, not mine. I am going home."

Mama opened her mouth to speak again but nothing came out.