The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [47]
CHAPTER 8
I Make an Unexpected Purchase, and Suffer an Expected Illness
A sick-room should always be kept very neat, and in perfect order; and all haste, noise, and bustle, should be avoided. In order to secure neatness, order, and quiet, in case of long illness, the following arrangements should be made. Keep a large box for fuel, which will need to be filled only twice in twenty-four hours. Provide, also, and keep in the room, or an adjacent closet, a small teakettle, a saucepan, a pail of water, for drinks and ablutions, a pitcher, a covered porringer, two pint bowls, two tumblers, two cups and saucers, two wine glasses, two large and two small spoons; also, a dish in which to wash these articles; a good bucket, near by, to receive the wash of the room. Procuring all these articles at once, will save much noise and confusion. —p. 238
I STAYEDIN Lawrence for nine days. The weather was hot enough to cook meat, and no one, man or woman, ever went without a large-brimmed hat. Modesty had nothing to do with it, and survival all. I thought, from living in Quincy, that I knew heat. The first day or two, in fact, I inwardly preened myself that this heat all these New Englanders kept exclaiming about was routine for us westerners. But in fact, this was K.T, and K.T. wasn’t Illinois. In Illinois, the heat rose around you, thick and damp, and hung there, unmoving, day and night. You got used to it. In K.T., the heat bore down on you during the day like a bright blue lid and then swept through you all night, a bullying, heavy wind that took your breath away rather than refreshing you. All but the severest, thinnest, most enervated ladies wore their garments turned up and folded back, their buttons unbuttoned. Petticoats stayed at home, corsets loosened and disappeared. The layers of clothes we were used to back in the States simply vanished, and no eyebrows went up, no remarks were made. For all the talk there was in Lawrence—and Lawrence was all talk—no one ever mentioned this. The men, too, put off their jackets and rolled up their sleeves. Quite a few went clean-shaven, and barbers in Lawrence did excellent business.
On the third day, I bought a horse and his saddle and bridle. I had given Thomas a hundred of the dollars from the sale of my father’s house, and I had spent thirty-seven dollars on provisions in Quincy before our departure. The rest I had sewn into my traveling dress. Perhaps Thomas knew it was there and perhaps not—one of my sister Harriet’s pieces of marital advice had been to keep my financial affairs in my own hands as far as I could, and I was predisposed to take this advice, anyway, as Thomas and I were all but strangers on the day of our wedding. How it happened with the horse was this: I was walking along Massachusetts Street, carrying my buckets to the river. Susannah was at home with the shakes—she shook every third day, and today was her shaking day. On her shaking day she was useless, so I had offered to carry her share of the water. This was my second trip, my first time out alone, so I was looking eagerly about. Thomas had left for the claim the day before, and we had agreed that I would continue to buy provisions, though of course nothing had been said about a horse. Thomas had never actually owned a horse, which showed, to my mind, that he really was from Massachusetts.
I was passing the Stearns establishment and looking through the door, thinking, no doubt, that for variety and wealth of goods, the Stearns establishment suffered by comparison to Horace’s place in Quincy,