The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [117]
Underneath her sympathy about the devastation we’d found on our claim, I could see that Louisa was both annoyed and anxious. For the first time all winter, she seemed ready to be rid of us, and I couldn’t blame her. Thomas and I had two bolts of sailcloth and not much money—and we agreed not to apply to his father for more, since any forthcoming funds would be accompanied by urgings to return to Boston and go back to work in the sailcloth factory. We continued to live at Louisa’s for a time, but now we two couples kept to our respective rooms and hung a quilt in the doorway for privacy. I went out each day and got the wood for the fire in our room, and I did most of our cooking. From time to time, visitors traipsed through our room, which was next to the stairs, to get to theirs, for evening gatherings that we weren’t always invited to. It was an arrangement that looked a bit like an estrangement but wasn’t, really. It was just some people finding their true levels with one another. It seemed as though it could not go on, but it did, day after day. While the men were gone to Topeka, Louisa and I resumed our old friendship and even slept together in her rosewood bed a couple of nights, so I saw that the problem was only our two families drawing into themselves, the way families do. One of these nights, Louisa said that she was pregnant. That was her word, right out, as if she were a cow or a dog. And she said she intended to be out and about all the way to the end—the most advanced authorities were very much against restricting women to their beds and their houses in such a condition, and she herself was very much against pretending to be ill when she wasn’t ill at all. And so forth. I was envious.
In the meantime, the Missourians continued to gather at the border, preparing their assault. It was the same rumor every day, and we ceased paying any attention to it. People who talked about it got to be known as newcomers or panicked. We all knew what the Missourians were really capable of, with all their big talk, and it was only an occasional brutal act, nothing concerted. Even so, I began to think that every circumstance was pushing us back toward our claim—the warming weather, the situation with Louisa, the dangers of living in Lawrence. Things would look different out there when the sun was shining and the ground was dry and ready to be planted. Frank was so alarmed by these signs that he began trying to soften me up to the idea of his staying in town.
Building in Lawrence and round about was like a pot that is boiling, its lid held down. The winter put the lid on it, but at the very first signs of spring, the lid popped off. New houses made new streets, new settlers had new money, everyone with anything to sell was busy selling it. Charles and Thomas raised their hauling prices, then raised them again. I was glad I’d saved my two bolts of sailcloth—I could get the same for two lengths, enough to sew up one bed tick, as I had gotten in the winter for a whole bolt. Frank brought in nails he found in the streets, hammered them out straight, and sold them for a penny apiece. The dullest man in the world could make some money if he was willing to split shakes. Anytime we worried about Missourians massing on the border, we looked around us at all the activity, all the new faces. They could mass all they wanted, but they could never put a stop to this, could they?
March turned into April much faster than December had ever turned into January or January into February. Thomas and I got behind in our plans to return to our claim, but we told ourselves