The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [67]
Mrs. Bush was full of Frank. "My dear Mrs. Newton, I must tell you, I didn’t know what to think when I saw this little man come swaggering up Vermont Street, easy as you please, taking bites out of an apple and asking everyone in a loud voice where this ’hay house’ of those Bushes and Jenkinses was! And then he tossed the core over his shoulder and pulled out this seegar stub and stuck it between his lips, and then when he got to our place and saw me standing in the doorway, he pushed his hat back on his head and thrust his hands in his pockets and gave me the once-over! I could barely keep myself from laughing! He’d lost his cap in the Missouri River, he said, and bought some old black slouch hat off a man in Missouri for a nickel! Well, he came right up to the door and said, ’You’d be Mrs. Bush, maybe, and I’m looking for my cousin Lydia Harkness, Newton now. She’s not expecting me, because I am set on giving her her death of a shock! She here?’ And then he swaggered in and looked around. You know, he sold that hat the next day for a quarter, and he had a whole case of junk with him, and he sold all of that, too. I bet he has forty or fifty dollars on him now. I said did he want one of the men to ride him out here day before yesterday, when he just arrived, but he said he’d wait, because he had some business to attend to! How old is that boy?"
"He’ll be thirteen in the winter."
"And then when he’d come in and looked all around, he began pulling out knives and guns and piling them on the table! I nearly fainted. He looked at me and said, ’Well, I didn’t have any trouble on the road, so I suppose I won’t be needing all of these here in K.T.’"
We looked over at him where he was standing with the men, his thumbs hitched into his braces, his left foot resting on his right. Mr. Holmes spoke and then Mr. Jenkins, and the whole time Frank nodded thoughtfully, just as if he were deep in their councils.
I looked wonderingly at my cousin from time to time, when I could do so tactfully, because it was clear that he didn’t want me to make much of his sudden appearance. He was in high spirits, but so was everyone else. It was a pleasant day. A ribbon of smoke or two from distant prairie fires drifted on the blue horizon, and nearby the river went its slow and silent way. It was deep enough for a swim, but I was a married woman surrounded by folks from Massachusetts. I didn’t even take off my shoes and stockings, though I longed to do so.
We got home late—well after dark, though there was enough of a moon to light our way. There was no bed for Frank, and I was busy laying out some quilts on the portion of the floor that we had finished, when he stopped me. "Lidie, you an’t going to make me sleep in this little box with the two of you, are ya?"
"It’s twelve by twelve. That’s big for K.T. People have ten by ten or—"
"I got my heart set on sleeping outdoors. I tried to tell that to Mrs. Bush, but she wouldn’t hear of it, and we was squashed all together. That boy they had there, I don’t know his name, one time in the night he rolled over on me and pinned my arms against the floor, and I couldn’t move to save my life. That fella had me, and if he hadn’t been asleep, I would of given him the Jesse for that, but I didn’t want to wake him. Don’t make me sleep inside!"
"The nights are getting cold, Frank. Inside, we keep a little fire in the stove—"
"That’s worse. I can’t sleep when I’m hot."
"I don’t know what your mother would—"
"It would be all right with Pa. Pa would be all for it!"
I knew that was true.
"All right."
And that was how Frank began living with us and went on in the same fashion. He was no boy but a self-reliant man. He came and went as he pleased—I stopped even looking out for him or worrying about him. His vocation was finding, or it was trading, or it was both, because he was