The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [50]
Now, I must say that although I had ridden my father’s horse and some of Roland Brereton’s animals and had been fond of one or two of them the way you are of a pet, I would never have attributed to any of those horses an understanding of the English language. From that first moment with Jeremiah, though, I believed viscerally that he listened to what I said and understood both the wishes I expressed and the fear in my voice. He chose not to hurt me. He walked forward mildly. It thus became impossible to sell him, either before Thomas returned or subsequently. We strolled around Lawrence, perhaps the only horse and rider with no business in hand. And I was certainly the only woman I saw who was riding like a man. Most were walking, some were seated in wagons; all glanced at me. I said to Jeremiah, "My goodness, they do admire you, Jeremiah." Perhaps they did, perhaps they didn’t, but here in K.T., where petticoats and buttons and manners were all loose and loosening further, I decided that I would ride my horse as I pleased, the Missourians and their brawls notwithstanding. That would be the compensation for everything else.
And I did buy a stove. I unstitched the money sewn up in my skirt and bought the larger, more expensive model. I also bargained Mr. Stearns down from thirty-five dollars to twenty-nine. I must say that he considered me very critical of his wares and hard to please. He didn’t call himself a reverend, either.
After three or four days, I was quite used to Lawrence; in particular, its combination of money and politics was always curious and stimulating. The stories they told of the last year, since Lawrence’s very founding, stood your hair up but also made you laugh. One friend of Mrs. Bush’s had been there from the beginning and was there the day that the Border Ruffians decided to come over and drive the settlers out. "The first thing they did, you know, before we even came out to K.T.," said Mr. Johnson to me, "was pass some resolutions. As soon as they ever heard of the Emigrant Aid Company, they resolved that they would remove us and that they would promote other societies, dedicated to our removal. Oh, when we came, they were ready for us!" We were alone in the leaning house—the Jenkinses had gone to visit friends of theirs, newly arrived at the Cincinnati House, and everyone else was still out at our claim."
"It isn’t slavery, in my opinion, that’s the problem," said Mrs. Bush. "It’s that they want the whole territory to be settled by slovenly, coon-hunting squatters like themselves. They are such a shocking class of people, taken all in all—"
"Certainly, ma’am." Mr. Johnson smiled, and Mrs. Bush fell silent.
"Of course, the pretext for our removal was to be that there were prior claims, but Dr. Robinson and his associates were perfectly legal in their assertion of the claims. They bought out Stearns, who wasn’t even here but was back at his real farm in Missouri, for five hundred dollars, and they let the other fella be, since his claim was outside the town. Then it was like turning over a rock. This Missourian showed up with a claim, then that one, then the other one. They expected claims to be honored that had been staked illegally, before the Indians vacated. Well, half of them cared about the slavery issue, maybe, and were set to drive us away, but the other half just wanted to get some money out of us if there was money to be got."
"You know," said Mrs. Bush, "that’s what makes me mad! They shout and rant about our aid company and all the money we’ve got to finance our malicious invasion of their rightful territory, but they can’t get enough of our money themselves. If they don’t have their hats off and their hands out, then they’ve put a gun to your head. It’s just like everything