The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [113]
As for the cabin, the roof had caved in from the snow, and all the chinking had fallen out from between the logs. The door, which had come unsecured, had been taken by the wind and was somewhere else now. Inside, our treasonous sheets from The Liberator were ripped to shreds and faded to unreadability. Animals had gotten in here, too, and searched for food everywhere, gnawing holes in the sailcloth bed tick to get to the prairie hay that I had stuffed into it. The bed tick was nearly flat—mice and rats and other animals had carried almost every stalk away. I had left a flocked wool quilt on the bed; something had eaten away great patches of the wool. The bedstead itself was broken down, our two chairs were tipped over, the candle holder had been opened and the tallow candles removed, my kitchen utensils had rolled everywhere. Shakes from the roof lay everywhere in the cabin, and sunlight shone in, revealing rather than cheering the devastation. Everything was covered with wet snow, and creeping moisture darkened every stick. It was a most inhospitable place.
Thomas came in with the news that the well had collapsed and would need to be dug again. He looked around the cabin.
I said, "I forgot it was so small."
"Twelve by twelve."
Indeed, more than the destruction, the true sight of what we had had was the discouraging thing. I had remembered lying in my bed on those early warm nights, looking up at the blue shine of the moonlight through the sailcloth and feeling satisfied with my kingdom. My bed had seemed spacious, my hearth had seemed roomy, my little house had seemed an abundance of privacy. Over the winter, I’d remembered thinking of the passersby—be they Indians or animals or settlers heading west under the moon, and imagining them envious of our dark and snug little dwelling, so neatly set beside the trees, between the openness of the prairie and the convenience of the river. But really, I saw, it was as tight as a shoe, as lonely as a star, as ramshackle as a pile of leaves, hardly a dwelling for humans. Thomas’s face mirrored my thoughts, and our exhilaration of what seemed like just a few minutes before might as well have never happened.
We had discussed our finances a few days earlier, and I knew that the winter had been expensive. Even though Louisa let us live with her without paying rent, we had paid out more over the winter than we had taken in, especially during the weeks we’d stayed at the Free State Hotel. Charles and Thomas had not made much, and because we were not paying rent, almost all of what they’d made had gone to Charles. The bolts of sailcloth Thomas’s father had sent I had sold for a total of thirty-two fifty. We had two bolts left. Sewn into my dress was three hundred dollars. Thomas had about eighty of what he had brought with him. That was our fortune. And we were looking right now at the remains of about two hundred and seventy-five, or so we estimated we had spent on our claim before the winter.
I must say that it came as a shock. I thought to remark that Jeremiah had won about sixteen dollars in his two races (and for that matter, there was no telling what Frank had in his pocket), but I kept my lips tightly closed. I saw that in his mind, my husband was compounding bad luck and personal failure. He looked again toward the broken bedstead, and his eyebrows lowered. He said, "We should have stayed out here."
"We might have died."
I was given to know through his lack of response that such an outcome seemed, momentarily at least, appealing.
"The James boy died of the cold. Mr. James forced them all to stay out here by themselves. Now Susannah says the woman and the baby are very poorly, as well."
He turned and walked out of the cabin, down the little step we had placed, which still defined our stoop.
What we had longed for so—the coming of spring, sunshine