“Well, why not? I’ve never been farther away from here than Dickinson. Your life is... independent. Exciting.”
“And don’t forget scary.”
“I haven’t seen you scared too many times.”
“No? Well, I hide it well, I guess.”
Clara laughed.
“Did I ever tell you how your brother scared me the day he picked me up at the station?”
“Teddy?” Clara chuckled, strolled to the dresser, and glanced at Linnea’s personal items. Among them was an agate bearing a beautiful translucent stripe of amber color. She held it up to the light. “Oh, Teddy’s just an old softie underneath — what’d he do, make you carry your own bags?” She replaced the agate and looked back over her shoulder.
“Worse than that. He told me I’d have to find someplace else to room and board because he didn’t want any woman living in his house.”
“Probably because of Melinda.”
Linnea’s eyes grew wide, interested. “He never mentions her. What was she like?”
Clara dropped to the edge of the bed, pulled one knee up, and became thoughtful for several seconds. “Melinda was like two people. One was gay and gutsy — that was the one we saw first, when she came here unannounced, saying she was going to marry Teddy. The other was the opposite. Quiet and broody. I was only eleven at the time, so I didn’t realize it then, but I’ve thought about it since I’ve grown up and had children of my own. I think part of Melinda’s problem was that she was hit harder than most by the baby blues and—”
“Baby blues?” Linnea interrupted, puzzled.
“You don’t know what that means?”
Linnea shook her head.
Clara rested one hand on her mounded stomach and leaned back on the other. “Baby blues is after the baby is born when a woman gets real sad and cries all the time. It happens to all of us.”
“It does?” Linnea’s eyes dropped to Clara’s burden. The sight of it filled her with awe.
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“B... but, why? I mean... it seems to me that would be one of the happiest times of your life, right after a new baby is born.”
Clara smoothed the skirts over her abdomen and smiled down wistfully. “Seems that way, doesn’t it? But for a while after the birth you get so very sad, and you feel foolish because you know you have everything in the world and should feel lucky, but you just want to cry and cry. Husbands just hate it. Poor Trigg, he always hangs around feeling helpless and clumsy and asks over and over what he can do for me.” She spread her palms and let them drop. “Only there’s nothing. It’s just got to run its course.”
“And Melinda cried and cried?”
“Did she ever. Seemed like she’d never stop. I guess she hated it here. Claimed the wheat was driving her crazy. Then that fall, when the wheat was all in and the hired hands left, she disappeared, too.”
“Oh!” Linnea drew a sharp breath and covered her lips. “You mean she... she ran away with one of them?”
“That part I don’t know. If she did, they made sure I never heard the details. We lived in John’s house then. That was the home place up there when Pa was alive. But Pa had been dead two years already. John was able to handle the home place alone and Teddy needed somebody to look after Kristian, so Ma and I moved in here. This used to be my room then. I can remember bringing Kristian up here and tucking him into bed with me when he was just a little mite.” A soft smile crossed Clara’s face. “Oh, he was the sweetest little thing you ever — ” Suddenly she drew a sharp breath, closed her eyes, and tensed backward, one palm pressed to her stomach.
Linnea’s eyes rounded in fright.
Momentarily, Clara relaxed again. “Oh, that was a hefty one.”
Mystified, Linnea asked, “What happened?”
“The baby kicked.”
“K... kicked?” She couldn’t stop staring at Clara’s protruding stomach, wondering about all the mysteries of child-bearing.
“Don’t you know anything about pregnant women?”
Linnea’s gaze lifted, dropped again. “No... you’re the first one I’ve ever talked to.”
“The baby’s alive already, you know. He’s moving around in there.”
“He is?” Linnea jerked as if from a reverie, and added, “I mean, of course he is. Otherwise how could he have kicked?” Fascinated, she had to learn more. “What does it feel like?”
Clara laughed, then invited, “Want to feel?”
“Oh, could I?”
“Come on. He’ll move again. He always does, once he gets rolling.”
Diffidently, Linnea perched beside Clara and reached out a timid hand.
“Oh, don’t be shy. It’s just a baby.”
Shyly, Linnea touched. Clara was hard, and warm, and carrying a precious life. When it moved beneath her hand, Linnea’s eyes widened in surprise, then a smile spread upon her face
“Oh, Clara. Oh golly... feel.”
Clara chuckled. “Believe me, I feel. More than I want to sometimes.”
“But what does it feel like — I mean inside you when he rolls like that?”
“Oh, kind of like a gas pain rumbling around.”
They laughed together. Linnea dropped her hand, envying Clara her head start on her family.
“Thank you for letting me feel.”
“Oh, don’t be silly. A woman’s got to know these things, otherwise she’s in for some big surprises once she gets married.”
Linnea pondered for a moment, thinking of Theodore touching Melinda’s stomach as she’d just touched Clara’s, feeling his child’s movements, holding his child for the first time. Birth... the greatest miracle of all. She tried to comprehend the depth of sadness a man would feel at being deserted by a wife with whom he’d shared that miracle.
“I guess what happened pretty much soured Theodore on women,” she ventured, running her thumbnail between the rows of chenille on the bedspread.
“A lot of questions about Teddy today.”
Linnea’s gaze lifted. “I was just curious, is all.”
Clara studied the young woman’s face closely, inquiring, “So how are things going between you two?”
“About the same. He’s grumpy most of the time. Treats me as if I had the bubonic plague.” Suddenly Linnea jumped up and stamped one foot. “He treats me like a child all the time and it makes me so mad!”
Clara studied Linnea’s back, surprised by her vehemence. So she wants to be treated like a woman. Well, well.
“You do have some feelings for our Teddy, don’t you?”
Linnea slouched, returned to the bed, and dropped down disconsolately. “Lordy, I don’t know.” She lifted pleading eyes to her friend. “I’m so mixed up.”
Clara recalled feeling mixed up herself during the days when she and Trigg had courted. She reached out to touch Linnea’s hand, convinced of the young woman’s affection for her brother. “Could it be you’re still doing a little growing up?”
“I guess I am.” Linnea’s expression turned doleful. “It’s awfully confusing, isn’t it?”
“We all go through it. Thank heavens only once, though. But I suspect that it’s a little harder when you find yourself falling for someone like Teddy.” Clara sat back and asked casually, “So what is it you want to know about him?”
“Has he ever had anyone else besides Melinda?”
“I’ve had my suspicions about that Lawler woman, but I’m not sure.”
“So have I.”
Clara cocked her head. “You jealous?”
“No, I’m not jealous!” Linnea at first appeared defensive, then dropped the facade. “Yes, I am,” she admitted more quietly. “Isn’t that absolutely silly? I mean, he’s sixteen years older than I am!” Exasperatedly, she flung her hands up. “My mother would absolutely lay an egg if she knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That I kissed him.”
“Ah, that.”
“Yes, that. I don’t understand him, Clara
. He kissed me as if he enjoyed it, too, but afterward he got so angry, as if I did something wrong. But I don’t know what,” she finished in a near wail.
Clara squeezed Linnea’s hands, then dropped them. “More than likely it’s himself he’s upset with, not you. It’s my guess that Teddy is feeling a little guilty because you’re so young. And he’s probably wondering what people would think — you living in this house like you do.”
“But that’s silly! We haven’t—”
“Of course it’s silly. No need to explain to me. But there’s one other thing you should remember. He’s been hurt awfully bad. I lived here after Melinda ran away. I saw how he suffered, and I’m sure it isn’t easy for him to break down and get close to someone again. He’s probably a little scared, don’t you think?”
“Scared? Theodore?” She’d never thought about him being scared before. Not the way he blustered around all the time. The idea was sobering. “I’m probably making too much out of just a couple of kisses. Like I said, he still treats me as if I’m in pinafores. But, Clara, please don’t tell anybody I told you.”
“Of course not.”
“And thank you for telling me about Melinda and about your condition.”
“You’re almost like one of the family now. And being Kristian’s teacher, you should know about his mother. As far as the other questions go — about personal matters — you can ask me anything, anytime. How are you supposed to know what to expect when you get married if you don’t ask questions?”
In the weeks that followed their first confidential exchanges, Linnea voiced countless other questions. As the two women grew closer, Linnea learned more about a woman’s body than she’d ever imagined there was to learn. There were times Clara shared some of the deeper intimacies of her marriage, revelations that sent Linnea’s imagination spinning.
Each time after such a heart-to-heart talk, Linnea would lie in bed at night — still in her leggings and covered to the eyes — and try to imagine herself and Theodore doing what Clara and Trigg had done to get their babies. Oh, she’d heard rumors about copulation before, but never from any such reliable source as Clara, who should certainly know!
After all Clara had done it with Trigg three times!
Then in one of their confidential exchanges, Clara revealed that it was something men and women did together much more often than when they wanted to have babies. It was too much fun to reserve only for begetting!
They rolled their eyes at each other and giggled.
But Linnea went away feeling even more confused than before. She spent hours wondering about the logistics of such an act, and how on earth two people ever brought themselves to begin it. Did the man just say it was time and then you crawled in bed with him and did it? And how, for heaven’s sake? Picturing it, she was sure it would be awkward and clumsy and grossly embarrassing, even if you loved the man. She recalled how repulsed she’d been by Rusty’s groping, and how angry the night Bill had tried to wedge his knee between hers. Yet, the two times when she’d been pressed against Theodore — oh, mercy, it had been grand.
But to take off her clothes and let him do what Clara had talked about? Not on her life! In the first place, the size Theodore was, he’d squash her dead!
November waned and Kristian turned seventeen. At school, everybody geared up for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Linnea began planning the Christmas program, and she spent her evenings writing the script for the nativity play, conveniently forgetting about Theodore’s reading lessons since they were still avoiding each other at every turn.
One day at noon recess the boys came back with a rabbit they’d snared. Excitedly, they asked Miss Brandonberg’s permission to dress it then and there. Linnea reluctantly approved, though she steered clear of the coal shed where they skinned and gutted the poor creature.
When the job was done, Raymond, Kristian, Tony, and Paul came back, bright-eyed and eager. “Miss Brandonberg?” Tony acted as spokesman. “We were wondering... well, since we caught the rabbit ourselves, could we cook him?”
“Cook him? You mean here?”
“Yeah, see, we thought maybe if you’d let us we’d bring a frying pan and ask our mas how to do it, and we’d fry him up to go with our potatoes tomorrow.”
Linnea’s stomach turned at the thought of possibly being offered a hunk of rabbit meat, cleaned and cooked by four proud novices. Wasn’t there such a thing as rabbit fever one could get from eating the creatures?
“I... well, goodness!” she exclaimed evasively.
“Please!” went up the chorus.
What could she do but consent, hoping that one small rabbit wouldn’t go far, and she’d escape having to eat any?
“Well, all right.” Hastily she added, “Provided you go home and find out exactly how to do it, and how long it has to be cooked to make sure it’s safe. And clean up after yourselves.”
They cut up the carcass, cleaned Paul’s lunch pail, and packed it inside, then left it in a corner of the cool cloakroom overnight. The next day Raymond arrived with a cast-iron skillet. The boys had a consultation and approached their teacher, shifting their feet nervously.
“Well, what now? Did you forget the onion?” She had made sure to ask Nissa directions for cooking rabbit so things would be done properly.
This time Kristian had been elected to speak. “We thought, if it was all the same to you, we’d save the one rabbit we got and freeze him while we go out lookin’ for more. Then, when we get enough, we’ll fix them for the whole school. One won’t hardly be enough,” he reasoned.
Dear, no, Linnea thought, feeling her gorge rise in anticipation.
“But there are fourteen of you,” she reminded them, carefully excluding herself.
Tony beamed. “Fifteen, countin’ you, Miss Brandonberg.”
Linnea despaired, unable to deny them permission when their intentions were so forthright and generous. She remained silent for so long that Raymond took up their plea.
“See, we were thinking how all the girls always get to learn to cook cause their mas teach them. But us boys, nobody ever teaches us.”
“We boys,” Linnea corrected automatically, her thoughts on the bloody patch of snow near the coal shed and the pinker patch beneath the pump.
“Yeah, we boys,” Raymond repeated dutifully, rushing on eagerly. “We might end up living alone some day, like Uncle John, then where would we be if we didn’t have our ma close by like Gram, to cook for us?”
How could she argue with that? What more important duty had any teacher than to prepare young people for life — whatever that life might bring?
“All right. You have my permission.”
They howled in approval, socked the air, then babbled excitedly as they hit for the door.
“And boys?”
The four turned back.
“If you do a good and a neat job of it, there’ll be extra credit for you at grade time. We shall call it ‘domestics.’”
It took the boys a week to catch four rabbits. During that time there was much whispering and secretiveness. Linnea suspected some of the girls were in on the plans, too, because every day during afternoon recess, Patricia Lommen and Frances Westgaard had their heads together with the boys, talking animatedly, occasionally breaking out in excited giggles, then quieting suddenly when a loud “Shh!” would go up from the group.
Raymond finally announced that they had all the rabbits they needed — by now they were frozen in several tightly covered pails in the snow by the coal shed — but informed Miss Brandonberg that they were saving the meal for the day before Thanksgiving, so could she set that day aside and give them a little longer dinner break than usual?
Libby Severt was somehow in on the act, too. She asked permission to take the smaller children aside for one hour of secret consultation early in Thanksgiving week. While Linnea sat at her desk, correcting arithmetic papers and trying her best not to appear inquisitive, a giggle went up from the youngsters in the back corn
er. She glanced up to see Roseanne and Sonny jumping up and down and clapping excitedly.
Then, with only one day to go before the event, another special request was made: they needed to use the cloakroom for a while and be left alone. Would Miss Brandonberg please stay out until they were done?
By this time Linnea was so curious it was all she could do to stay at her desk while the door opened and closed repeatedly and children came in and took things from their desks, then ran back and slammed the door. The cloak room was so cold they’d donned their jackets, yet nobody seemed to mind in the least.
At last the big day arrived and it was impossible to carry on normally with reading, writing, and arithmetic lessons. The children were simply jittering with excitement.
At mid-morning the older boys started frying rabbits in two enormous iron frying pans. Potatoes ringed the entire fender of the stove, and soon the savory scent of cooking onions filled the schoolroom. Skipp and Bent proudly marched to the cloakroom and came back with a metal corn-popper on a long handle and set to work popping corn. Jeannette and Roseanne produced a reasonable facsimile of a basket — woven by their own immature hands? — of fresh, dry cornstalks, into which the popcorn was dumped. Several of the children took over pushing the rows of desks back against the walls. They swept the floor, then ringed the stove with fifteen plates and forks confiscated from their mothers’ pantries. A fruit jar of bright, golden butter appeared, and salt and pepper shakers.
Roseanne marched up to Linnea’s desk and announced, very soberly, “We know the Pilgrimth din’t have plates, but we—”
“Shh! Roseanne!” Libby came by and almost yanked Roseanne off her feet. A moment later the cloak room door slammed behind them.
Next, Norna came out and ran up to the big boys by the stove, whispering urgently into Kristian’s ear. Kristian, Ray, and Tony followed her back into the cloakroom and returned moments later sporting wide white Pilgrim collars made of paper, and black paper hats that made them look more like warlocks than Pilgrims.
Finally, when Linnea’s excitement was as great as that of her students, Bent and Jeannette came out of the cloakroom, marched with all due pomp and importance to “teacher’s desk,” and escorted her to the place of honor near the stove — one with a perfect view of the cloakroom door.