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By Root 1747 0

doors and windows to rattling. The house possessed a stove, but the stovepipe stopped a few feet above our heads, and the smoke was meant to issue out of one of the openings at either end of the ceiling. Perhaps because of this unorthodox arrangement, or the wind, or both, the stove was difficult to light, and it took some time for the corncakes to be cooked. The three ladies were friendly and eager for conversation. They asked all about me, and Mrs. Jenkins whispered to me at one point, "Oh, my dear, everyone is so fond of Thomas Newton! He is a good, sober man!"

Mr. Bush and Mr. Jenkins, it turned out, were out at Big Spring, at the convention, and the women didn’t know whether to expect them that night or the next day. "But whenever they come," declared Mrs. Bush, "I guarantee you they’ll have done some business, because they were fit to be tied when they left. You know about the gag law?"

I did not. I didn’t know anything about Kansas politics to speak of, but I quickly learned, because that was all anyone talked about. When Thomas and I arrived, even though K.T. had been open to settlement only a few months, events had very much begun.

Mrs. Bush pushed up her sleeves and opened the throat of her bodice another button, then hitched up her skirt. When she saw me staring, she laughed and said, "Lydia, Kansas is no place for gowns and petticoats! I an’t going to burn up, is what the women from Missouri say when they cut off their skirts, and for once they’re right! And you’re always having to raise your skirts anyway, owing to the tobacco spittle! Anyway, there’s a law coming in one of these days—"

"In nine days, on the fifteenth," interjected Susannah, who had finally gotten the fire going and was now giving the corncakes another stir.

"—that says that if you even talk about freeing slaves, or write about it, or bring a paper like The Liberator into the territory, you can be put to death for it!"

"Oh, Helen," said Mrs. Jenkins. "Surdy not for just subscribing to The Liberator."

"Yes, indeed! Doesn’t Garrison advocate freeing the slaves? Doesn’t he advocate conspiring together to do so? There you are. Ten days from now, if they see that paper in your hands, they could arrest you and put you to death."

We contemplated this. I wondered if Thomas, who I knew was carrying some eastern papers in his bag, was aware of this law.

"And," said Mrs. Bush, "if you so much as give a fugitive a drink of water, that’s hard labor for ten years!"

She flipped the cakes, which were now smoking on the griddle. "But listen to this! This is the worst! You get two years of hard labor just for saying that someone in K.T. doesn’t have a right to hold slaves! I swear!"

"Helen," said Mrs. Jenkins. "Don’t swear."

"And if someone gets convicted of one of these offenses, not even the governor can pardon him."

"That shows they an’t sure of the governor."

"Well, they weren’t sure of Reeder, but they’re sure of this Shannon." She turned to me. "He’s the new governor. He’s one of them."

"That Stringfellow is the worst," said Susannah. "He will print anything in that paper of his. It scares me."

"It don’t scare me," said Mrs. Bush. "It just makes me mad. That cup and saucer are mismatched, Lydia, dear. All my cups and saucers from England that I got for my wedding, all but three cups and two saucers from two different sets, were smashed on the way here. I’m sure I’d like this place better if that hadn’t happened."

She handed me a cup of tea and a plate of corncakes. I set them on a tiny table at my elbow, which looked to be made of two boxes set one on top of the other. It was dark, because the candles had blown out in the interior breeze, but my eyes had adjusted. Mr. Bisket, Thomas, and the third man, or boy, came in and sat down. Mrs. Bush handed Thomas a plate of corncakes, too.

I said that they were delicious.

"Well," said Mr. Bisket, "you need a big hunger for corncakes if you’re going to live in K.T. Though I saw that Mr. Stearns has butter and eggs and apples and plums in his new store."

"If they’d stick to that store and give