The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [205]
"I cut the skirt off my dress to make a shirt out of it."
"You ain’ got nothin’ else beside dese thangs?"
"No."
"Well," said Helen, "I’m going to go over to The Poplars and talk to Mrs. Harris. I’m a pet of hers, and Maria and Dorothea have ever so many frocks that they didn’t take with them to Saint Louis, and I know for sure they were planning to have ever so many more made when they got there. Dorothea is taller than you, Lorna."
"You ken try. Dey don’ know what dey got in dat house, anyways. Dey don’ open de cupboards from one yeah to de nex’. Ifn dey lose somethin’, dey go get a new one, instead of jes’ lookin’ for de old."
"Lorna, that’s such a slander!"
"It ain’! Dey servants talk! Dey servants is almost rich offa dem!"
"Well, then! That will give me something to do before Papa gets home!" And she marched out, full of purpose.
Lorna shook out my dress, and we both wrinkled our noses at the stink of mildew. I saw that the books were considerably damaged, too, with black spots on their covers and their pages all swollen. I touched them and gave out a sigh. Lorna said, "I seen dresses worse off den dis dat come back for yeahs’ more good weahin’. I reckon Missy Helen gon’ tek caeh of you. You her projec’ now, so you get back into you bed and you’ll see!" She gave one of her rare small smiles. The pistol had been with us the whole time, lying there at the bottom of my case. I could see Lorna not looking at it, and surely she could see me not looking at it. Now I bent down and closed the case, snapping the hasp with a sharp click. She said, "Dat case needs airin’, too. It have quite a stink on its own." But she didn’t reach for it, and presently she went out of the room, carrying the dress and the shoes. I got back into the bed. I was a bit tired, and anyway, until there was something decent for me to wear, I didn’t have anywhere else to go.
I have to say that I was strangely calm, considering my situation. No doubt there was some lingering weakness owing to my collapse, a weakness of the soul as well as of the body. Perhaps that was the reason that I seemed to have changed utterly. Had I spent my girlhood exploring the forests and fields around Quincy? Had I swum the great river? Had I journeyed to Kansas, helped build a claim there, hunted prairie chickens and turkeys, ridden my horse all about? Had I walked up and down the streets of Lawrence, fled the Missouri Rose, gone about as a boy, and a restless one at that? Had I walked from Kansas City to Independence and from Independence to here? Had I endured the discomforts of bitter cold and blazing heat, high winds, pouring rain, jolting wagons, steamers run aground? Had I continued doing and doing and everlastingly doing? It seemed that I had, but now I couldn’t understand it. Another person had done all of that. It exhausted and oppressed me just to ponder it. The only good thing I could think of was to give way entirely to the languor I felt. I was hardly enterprising enough to get to the windows of my room. Simply to lie upon the bed was preferable, not even thinking any thoughts or making any plans; plans implied future activity, which seemed impossible, not to mention unappealing. What a luxury it was, knowing that Helen and Lorna and the unknown Delia were seeing to everything and that all I needed to do was close my eyes!
I thought of Mrs. Bush, who had said more than once that southerners in general and Missourians in particular were simply shiftless and lazy. "Of course, that’s the greatest evil of all," she would say. "It robs you of knowing the pleasure of activity. We who came up in a cold climate must