The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [111]
I didn’t know how to bridge the gulf between Olea and me, though Louise waited in the middle, ready to help. Olea was civil, even offered to teach me how to drive the car, because she’d read the manual. I could use her help but resisted it. How dare she? began my thoughts, though I knew that harboring self-righteousness made me more like Ida than I cared to admit.
Families accommodated, did things for each other that might not be explainable to those outside—or even those inside. What had Franklin told me? Family came from that Latin word famulus, meaning “servant.”
So I became a servant, putting aside what I’d hoped would be a fur ranch one day.
The ad I ran got us new boarders, and I cooked for them myself on days when Louise rested or forgot. Louise couldn’t be left alone for very long. I was especially concerned around the stove, as she’d forget the pans were hot and pick them up with her bare palms. Once she even grabbed up my curling iron, forgetting she’d fixed my hair with it. We used as much butter on her burns as in what we ate. It amazed me that nothing bad had happened while I’d been gone with Louise home alone, but maybe Olea had dropped by more than she’d let on.
When I saw the cost of the touring car, I had words with Olea. We stood in her kitchen where I’d been invited to sit for tea, but I preferred to stand instead. “Two thousand dollars? I can’t afford that! Especially now that I no longer have employment,” I said.
“Well, perhaps I did go overboard,” Olea admitted. “But you often mentioned owning an auto. It would make it easier to visit your properties.”
“Yes, it would, but at that price? I’m going to take it back,” I said, “see how much money I can get for it. And then … I’ll buy a Model N. They’re only six hundred dollars. I think I can manage that.”
“Let me teach you how to drive in the touring car first,” Olea said. I thought it might be a way to engage with her without the discontent of her living away from us. So Olea taught me how to drive. It was a despicable affair, really. She didn’t know enough herself, but together we figured out how to check the petroleum level, how to move the stick to go faster or slow down. I held tight to the side as we sped down a hill, and Olea shouted, “It says forty-five on that thing!” I’d never gone so fast outside of a train. Louise squealed in the backseat.
I especially loved the gas headlamps that allowed for evening spins in the cool, dry air of the coulee. The Model N didn’t have such details, but then it was far less expensive. It was a good investment that brought a little passion and pleasure with it.
The Warren men and I continued our arrangement; I bought their pelts and took the hides to Spokane myself in my Model N. With that sale and the wheat harvest, if rains continued, we’d be all right. The boarders’ payments gave us a little more income. I’d spent a great deal of money on the trip, more than I should have, and I had that car now. I’d “hunker down,” as I’d heard men say, and do what I must. That’s what families did for each other.
Perhaps they overlooked the quirkiness too and the times when one might overstep the bounds.
Snow came, and daily living consumed our time. I shoveled the walkway, ordered books on stamp collecting from the library to occupy me through the winter. Louise now read with a magnifying glass in the mornings, and at night she wrote.
“What are you working on so hard?” I asked one evening.
“Oh, I take little phrases from Scripture in the morning and think about them all day, then at night I write down how God spoke to me through them.”
“That’s nice,” I said as I stuck another stamp into my book.
“Like this one,” she continued. “ ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul.’ Now, I’ve always thought of that as a command, but it’s also a promise that one day I shall love God that way. Isn’t that lovely? That came out of my day yesterday.