The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [204]
"De girl done laundered dat shirt and dem stockin’s. Dem boots waren’t worth savin’; you done walked right through dey soles. Missy Helen kep’ you watch fo’ ya. I don’ know what you gone do about a dress. You bigger dan everbody round heah."
"I’ve got a dress, but it’s in my case that I put under the hay across the road. Can you get it for me?"
"We done had a terrible rain since den—"
She saw my face fall.
"But maybe de hay save it." She stared at me, then she shook her head and exclaimed, "I don’ know wheah you come from, missy. You come outta some dream, seems to me."
"I came from Kansas." That I should not have said.
Lorna’s mouth opened, then snapped shut. She lowered her voice. "Well, dat’s a red-hot word round heah dat you don’t want to be sayin’ when Massa Richard come back. Massa Richard is death on Kansas. Ta heah him tell it, Kansas war stolen right away from him. Oh, he gits hot on de subjec’ and starts runnin’ his hands ovah his pistols lak he cain’ wait to shoot someone. Dey all feel dat, so you bettah jes’ not say de word. I say you is from Saint Louis or someplace lak dat."
"Palmyra?"
Now Lorna stared at me again, just for the smallest second, then she said, "Sure ’nuf. Palmyra is all right."
"When is Master Richard coming back?"
"I guess tonight. Delia, she makin’ a good hot supper fo’ him and dem others. Zak had to kill her four chickens, an’ she makin’ dumplin’s."
My mouth began to water right then, so I sat up and ate my breakfast. I could see out the windows from there, so when, a few moments later, I discerned Lorna and Helen making their way across the lawn to the road, I could only smile. I got up and watched them. They came to the road, crossed it, and were hidden by trees. After that, they were gone for what seemed like a long time, but then they reappeared. Lorna was carrying my case, which even from this distance looked considerably the worse for wear, and Helen was talking to her. Halfway up the lawn, Helen, grinning, ran to the house with the news. I got back into my bed, and she burst into the room. "We found it! Oh, Louisa, I was so afraid for you! You never know who is walking along that road; it’s a very well-traveled road. I was saying to Lorna that I despaired of finding it, and then what would you do? I couldn’t have told you! But we did find it, and it isn’t too wet, you’ll see." She ran out of the room and called down the stairs, then came back in. "And it’s heavy! I can’t believe you carried it all this way from—from— well, from wherever!"
I couldn’t remember where I had told Helen I was from, but then Lorna carried in my case, which was certainly battered and sodden. She set it on the floor, then she and Helen stepped back and looked at me expectantly. Obviously, I was to open it.
"Mercy!" said Helen. "I hope your things aren’t ruined! Last year, Minna and I went to an outdoor party, and we got caught in a terrible storm and had to cross the muckiest field! Oh, my goodness, our dresses were just black halfway up the skirt, and worse! And our bonnets! We’d only worn them that once! We were so downcast, but Lorna and Delia managed..."
Reader, I opened it.
There, on the top, were Thomas’s three books that I had saved—Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Emerson essays, and a book called The Bigelow Papers, by Mr. Lowell. With them was my own fat volume, Miss Beecher’s housekeeping manual. I lifted them out and saw that Helen was looking at them, but I looked quickly away from her and didn’t see her reaction to them, if she had one. Underneath them was my brown woolen dress, quite damp and ill-smelling. Its color had leached out onto the things below—my