The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [21]
Near me was some bread, some salt pork, some pickles, another meat dish of some kind, some boiled potatoes, a dish of applesauce, and some johnnycake. I did as the others did and piled it all on my plate, taking as much as I was likely to want, because already the dishes and bowls were beginning to empty. Down the table I saw a dish of sliced cucumber in vinegar, which I liked very much, but there was no one to pass it, and even as I watched, wondering how to get some, a boy about Frank’s age served himself almost every slice on the plate. I started to eat what I had. What noise there was in the room was entirely made up of the clatter of china and utensils, the scraping of chairs, the moist sound of mastication, the rustle of wool and calico. There were some twenty people in the room, and at last I espied Mr. Newton, at the far end of the table, looking around for me. He had a slice of ham on his plate, and that was it. As he was reaching for some bread, the man next to him took the last piece right out from under his fingertips. "Eat! Eat!" exclaimed Annabelle. "The porters will take your plate away!"
I did as I was told and found myself doing what all the others were doing: shoveling my victuals in by the forkful, hardly chewing, and certainly not enjoying myself. Before I was half done, the men around us began to wipe their plates with their corn bread, push back their chairs, and leave the table. Mr. Newton caught sight of me and raised his hand with a smile, and I thought that it was a fine thing after all to see him from a distance. He had a grace and a reserve that the men around him had none of. At Saint Louis, our plan was to stay one night at a hotel near the landing, called the Vandeventer House. As I looked at my new husband, my spirits lifted in anticipation. Five minutes later, all the food was gone, and all the men had left the room. Dorothea and Annabelle breathed a common sigh. Annabelle said, "Now, ladies, I think we may leave the dining room with a bit more decorum, but be careful of the spittoons that have been pushed about." Indeed, the one against the wall behind my chair was more than half full of dark, odorous liquid.
We got back to the ladies’ cabin without mishap.
Our common battle had broken down the strangeness between us, so for the rest of the journey we sat in an intimate circle, just as if we were friends, and told one another bits about ourselves. The two gray-haired ladies introduced themselves as the Misses Tonkin. "Now, my dear," said Dorothea, the older one, "I know that sounds just as if we were Chinese, but we come from Cornwall, in England. Tonkin there is like Tompkins somewhere else."
"But we don’t come from there any longer, Dorothea. We come from Wisconsin, not far from Galena. Every year, we take the Galena packet to Saint Louis and shop for winter things. It’s a nice trip for us, don’t you see. We get to see the river, which is so lovely, and all the best French things are in Saint Louis. You can see this lace, here." She held up her sleeve, and it was true: the black lace that edged it was delicate and handsome. "If Mr. Tonkin, our brother, only knew how we were spending our money!"