Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner [246]
Now imagine that on the day of the celebration, with Sidonie in her white apron passing cakes on the piazza and through the rooms, this man Burns was one of the guests. Poor Sidonie could not bring herself to pass near him, and I hope he got no cakes at all. Yet there was no way he could have been excluded, short of his own realization of the delicacy of her position, for he is one of the political crowd, and a “coming” man. He, of course, brazened it out and chatted and laughed, while that poor clumsy girl, who might have been attending the affair as his wife, went red and numb among the guests with her tray of cakes!
Oh, you must come to Idaho! It is the only place I know where your servants’ problems and your guests’ problems turn out to be the same. At least, Idaho being what it is, some other young man is likely to come to my relief, for Sidonie is a handsome creature, however untrained.
My little girls, whose first “big party” it was, were allowed to dress themselves in their best frocks, and attend for a time, and help serve. They ate too many cakes and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. As usual, the gentlemen all fell in love with Agnes, who was a shameless flirt and quite irresistible. But I am glad to say the ladies found Betsy what I know her to be. More and more I am thankful that we named her what we did. She is Bessie all over again, in sweetness if not in beauty–and who can tell what nine will become by nineteen?
Now that the opening of the Susan has made water available for their claims, Bessie and John plan to order the requisite “improvements” made, and in the fall will sell the last of the old Milton place and move out here. I hate the thought of Milton’s being entirely gone, and I confess that when I heard they had gambled their little savings on the ditch I felt the blackest premonitions. I felt like the scapegoat that had led them to their destruction. But now I think my greatest happiness will be to have Bessie living only a little more than two miles away. John has always ached to come west, and Bessie is the most loyal of wives. What a joy it will be (and how tired I get of writing “will be” rather than “is”!) to have her come calling in the afternoons when her work is done, and to have her to sit with through whole evenings, and talk with, and read with, and remember with, and lend things to, and borrow from! I live in a busy but lonely house. Next to you, Bessie is the only person who could redeem it for me, and to see her Eastern children thundering with my Western ones up the lane on their ponies will be–will be!–pure heaven.
Meantime, the Big Ditch is stalled until the Syndicate decides to provide this summer’s construction money, and all salaries are in arrears. The engineers occupy themselves with finishing and improving the embankment of the diversion dam, and riding the length of the Susan to detect and repair leaks.
The Mesa
July 2, 1890
My darling Augusta–
I can hardly bear to write you this letter, and would not if it could possibly arrive in time to spoil your pleasure in the medal a grateful city will be giving Thomas day after tomorrow. Believe me when I say I would be thinking of nothing but his deserved honor, and doing nothing but read and memorize the magnificent poem you sent me that he has composed for the occasion, if we had not had poured upon us enough trouble, deserved and undeserved, to unhinge my mind and break down all my defenses. Will you listen, and give me your silent sympathy? I cannot write to Bessie–not yet, not until every hope is exhausted, as I fear it will be.
First, the Big Ditch is dead again. The Syndicate are quarreling among themselves and accusing General Tompkins and Oliver of Heaven knows what. Mr. Harvey, our friend and supporter, is cruelly dead, by the most brutally unpredictable accident. An absent-minded, enthusiastic, childlike man, he walked one morning, reading his