“I just repeat to remind them to be resourceful, that there is always a way through a hard time.”
“Boys aren’t interested in getting out of trouble. They like getting into trouble,” my wise daughter told me.
So I expended my training on lilacs. A lilac from the President Grévy gave me a treat when it produced a deep blue the color of Irvina’s eyes. I selected that one and pollinated it with another blue and trusted providence to bring me a surprise some years forward. A single white produced a double bloom one year, and that, too, required cheering and a letter to Mr. Burbank who did not respond. He traveled a great deal, lecturing, and I supposed he had so many letters, answering mine just took up too much time.
“I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed you, Mrs. Klager.” I didn’t recognize the voice nor did I recognize the young, smartly dressed woman who stood on my doorstep. “I’m Cornelia Givens, formerly of the Sacramento Bee.”
Slender as a tulip stem, the young woman’s face shone brightly, and I welcomed her inside the house.
“What are you doing here? When I hadn’t heard from you, I thought—”
“I must apologize for not letting you know.” She took a deep breath as she sat on the horsehair couch I directed her to. I offered her lemonade, which she accepted, took a deep swallow and then said, “I quit my job and decided to test my ability to write for magazines and other papers, become a freelance reporter. It took longer to get established than I thought it would.”
“A freelance reporter. Good for you.”
“I’m writing feature articles now. Maybe one day I’ll work on a novel or a book of poetry, but for now I’m having the best time talking with people. I’m learning so many new things. Anyway, I’m here because I think writing about your garden is a wonderful idea. And I have a magazine interested.”
“Do you?”
Her enthusiasm washed away that little annoyance I felt at her not writing the article when I’d first suggested it. “I can see from the front of your yard that you’ve been given a golden spade to make miracles out of dirt.” She stood, looking out the window. “Transforming, that’s what this is. How many plants would you say you have here? Would you grant me a tour?” She turned to face me.
“I guess by now I have six hundred or more, not counting the lilacs, and there are several hundred of them.”
“Oh, that’s just the sort of thing readers like. I know I can sell this. I had a long story printed in the Atlantic about the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture for Women back east, and I visited a number of arboretums, interviewed the landscape architects and chief gardeners. I love it, even if I still can’t grow a pansy on my own.” She laughed. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you. I felt strongly that I needed to take advantage of my time back east before returning west and finally getting to see your gorgeous garden.”
“That’s fine, just fine,” I said. I showed her around my garden then, and she made notes, even sketched a few plants and the house and barn. She cooed at the lilacs, talked to the rhododendrons, asked questions.
Cornelia especially liked the iron-shaped garden with its daisies and petunias and pansies and the statue of a young girl that was a fountain overflowing with water. “I love the way you’ve laid it out with the color rising like a sea wave, light to dark, smaller plants to taller ones with the lilac bushes beyond, peeking around the side of the potting house. It’s quite … soothing to the eye, Mrs. Klager. The fountain, it’s lovely too. It speaks of abundance and generosity, as the water flows over the girl’s basket.”
“Thank you for that. I change things nearly every year, much to Mr. Klager’s consternation, but I like seeing new things and how they’ll complement each other or not. And the fountain says to you exactly what I hoped it would.”
We wandered the paths, and she asked about Nelia’s direction of the bucket boys. She wrote down what they were paid. The long rows of lilacs caused her to gasp. “So many.”
“If I get one good plant out of four hundred, I’m doing well. So I have to plant a lot of cultivars, hoping they’ll produce the innovation I’m looking for.”
“It’s so much work,” Cornelia said as we neared the end of the tour and I showed her my nursery efforts in the glassed-in porch. “You and Frank do this all by yourselves? And run a dairy too?”
“Our children help, of course. And I’ve had hired help, young girls attending the new high school. My bucket boys show up regularly. It is a big production.”
“Does it, I mean, can you … make a living doing this? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it as a profession,” I said. “But I have a good husband and a productive herd of cows. The price of cheese has held, and our farm is paid off.” I felt a little uncomfortable telling her this business about money. It wasn’t the sort of conversation one had with a sister, let alone a near stranger. But I didn’t want someone jumping into a garden arena without full knowledge that they’d be in the poorhouse for a long time, unless they had other means to keep their gardens flourishing. “I don’t do this to make a living. Bringing flowers to others has been a gift I never imagined I’d be allowed to give. It was a hobby for a long time, a challenge, started when I wanted to have a larger, crisper apple that was easier to peel.” I took her to the apple orchard and showed her, explaining that in the spring, I had any number of blossoms from different sorts of apples grafted onto one tree.
“It’s so … impressive,” she said.
A bumblebee lobbed up from orange poppy blooms and flew off.
“Not the work of it, but the result,” I agreed. “God knew that we’d need beauty and fragrance to help us through the difficult days, so He gave us flowers and let us learn on our own how their cycle of living and dying is like a garden’s rhythm, giving us hope each spring.”
Cornelia nodded, then looked at her lapel watch.
“Will you spend the night in Woodland?”
“I have a room at the boarding house.”
“You’re welcome here. It’ll save you money. A freelance writer has to pay attention to that.” I wagged my finger at her. “And wouldn’t you like to see the garden in the early morning?”
“I would at that, but I hate to impose. Besides I want to review my notes and put them in some order so I can ask better questions in the morning. But thank you. You’re very generous with your garden and your time.”
I wondered if she’d run into Dr. Hoffman or Roy Mills.
Cornelia came back in the morning and had a few questions for Frank. She had a bit of advice for us too before she left. “If my article is published, there’ll be visitors coming here. I’ll mention that the time to come is what, between mid-April and early May? That’s when they’d see lilacs blooming, correct?”
“I submit that’s so.”
“Then my suggestion is that you have scads of lemonade made up you can sell for a penny to help compensate for the inconvenience of visitors.”
“Not inconvenient. We’d love it, wouldn’t we, Frank?”
“Maybe I’ll put a box out, with one of my signs: Give a Klager Life. Donate Here.”
“Oh, Frank.” I punched his shoulder.
“I’d also suggest you think about places for people to park their vehicles,” Cornelia said.
“Ach, no. Not that many people are interested in lilacs.”
“You’d be surprised. Keep in mind this article will reach thousands of readers, and good writing is meant to move people to action. I hope they’ll move along the rivers and the roads and come here, to Woodland, just as I did.”
I took her enthusiasm as a young woman’s enthusiasm for her work. I never dreamed that she’d be right.
THIRTY-FOUR
MOVING ON
Hulda, 1908–1909
Nelia instructed the bucket brigade like a nurse giving directions to orderlies. I said as much, and she laughed. “I plan to be a nurse one day. I’m going to school at the new Swedish Hospital in Seattle.”
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“I’ve never heard of the place.” Nelia had just popped a blood blister on one of the boys’ hands, wrapped it, and sent him off to nurse it while he urged his bucket brothers onward.
“They’re raising funds now, and by the time I graduate, they’ll have a program where I can work and go to school too.”
“Nursing. A wonderful profession.”
“I’ll have to get over being squeamish.”
“You handled that blister just fine.”
She shrugged.
“I miss Ruth,” I told her.
“Am I not doing enough?” Nelia looked alarmed.
“No, no, you’re a wonderful worker. I just loved teaching the two of you. I wonder how she’s doing in Baltimore.”
“She’s like my sister.” I nodded agreement. “And you’re like my mother,” she said.
“Am I? That pleases me.” It did, more than I could say. I swallowed, hoping I wouldn’t push this bud of conversation too fast. “You’ve talked little about your mother.”
“I don’t remember much of her. Even Jasmine seems miles away.”
I stopped pouring beer into my snail and slug pots and listened.
“She’s buried up the Lewis River,” Nelia continued. “On the Runyan Property where we stayed.”
“You’ve had a lot of losses in your young life.”
“The work here was good healing, Mrs. K.” For the first time, I saw the girl with tears in her eyes. She’d taken tragedy and loss and been a good steward of it.
The next morning when she came over from Emil’s, I told her I had a gift for her. “I was going to wait until you left for school, as I did with Ruth, but I decided you needed this now. Its name is Chrystle. It’s a new variety. White, but still not the perfect cream I’m seeking. It does have petal edges that are crisp like they’ve been cut with very sharp scissors, and the lilac society agrees it’s a unique plant.”
“It’s beautiful.” She held the cultivar as though it were a newborn, then put it in one of the galvanized buckets. “I’ll take the best care of it.”
“I have no doubt.” I stroked her dark curls. “It’s who you are.”
Roy Mills came for Christmas dinner where our house abounded with happy conversation. Irvina was the delight of the day as she opened her presents, giggling.
Frank bantered with Roy about business, how logging brought new people and new customers to the store, whether hop farmers were doing well this season. They spoke of vehicles, weather, men things.
Then in January, Frank announced his intention to buy a Model T Ford.
“Now?” I asked.
“I need an auto in time for Lizzie’s wedding.”
“What?” Lizzie and Roy were downstairs sitting in the living room, while we were upstairs preparing for bed. A January wind howled against the house. “How …? When …?” Why hadn’t Lizzie said something? Oh, I knew Roy was interested. He often came from Swartz’s boarding house carrying a lantern in the night to make the half-mile trek. Once, a wag had painted Roy’s lantern red, which did not please him one bit. But that he planned to marry Lizzie, and she might say yes, well, I wasn’t ready for that. No one had mentioned that!
“Man did the right thing coming to me to ask for my daughter’s hand,” Frank said. “I had to keep his confidence. Lizzie’ll tell you everything, I’m sure, as soon as the man leaves. Barely has enough privacy to court the woman with Martha and Fritz and us hovering about.”
“Proper chaperoning is all.” I punched the feather pillow.
I listened to the low murmuring downstairs, wishing I could make out sounds coming up the stairwell, but I couldn’t. Finally, I heard the door close and Lizzie make a phone call, then she sauntered up the stairs.
“Mama, are you awake?” Lizzie knocked at the door.
“You couldn’t keep her down if she was dead,” Frank said.
“Come in, come in.” I sat up. “You have news?”
“Roy asked me to marry him. We set a date in March. Will that be all right? I know it isn’t very far away, but things get busy for him at the store after that, and I know they do here too with your garden.”
“Lizzie. Don’t worry about our garden. You set the date any time you wish, and tell us what you’d like for flowers. We’ll push them in the sun porch to have good blooms.”
“Crocus, Mama. I’d like blue crocus, just a small bouquet for Martha and Delia and me to carry.”
“Your sisters already know?”
Martha stuck her head around the corner. “Don’t be upset just because we all knew that tonight was the night, Mama. We weren’t sure you could keep the bubbling in your smile from letting Roy know that everyone knew.”
“I can keep a secret,” I huffed.
Lizzie hugged me. “I know you can. But Martha’s right. You wear your emotions on your face, and I didn’t want Roy to have second thoughts about maybe being swooped and smothered by this family of ours. We don’t do much lightly, you know.”
“Living abundantly, that’s what we’re charged with,” I said. I was tickled for Lizzie and Roy Mills. I told Frank as much after everything settled down, with Lizzie and Martha together going to the tack room to inform Fritz.
“You’re pure, Huldie. One of a kind,” Frank told me. “You have not one wit of guile inside of you. You wouldn’t have been able to stop yourself from greeting Roy differently, just knowing he’d soon be family. It’s how you are, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. But Lizzie, well, she wanted this to be her night, and I submit, a man can get chilled feet even when he’s looking forward to warm socks to put them into.”
“I guess,” I said.
“You’ve a compassionate heart. And the best thing about you is that you don’t carry hurt around for long. You turn it into something good, maybe even a deeper caring than what you might have before the hurt.”
“When did you get so wise?” I buttoned up the top button on his long underwear. The wood heat from the kitchen didn’t rise all that much to the second floor, and it was cold outside.
“Been living with you all these years. Some of your wisdom has to rub off eventually.” He pulled up the crazy quilt with its velvets and wool pieces stitched together. I snuggled up next to him in my flannel gown, the comfort of ages resting in his sleeping sighs. I put my cold feet against him, and he let me.
I didn’t fall asleep right away. Instead, I thanked God for a fine husband, a grand family. I thanked Him that my children were friends to one another and that He had given two of them another person to love and grow old with. I prayed they would grow old together, as Frank and I were, and that the loss of my sons-in-law so soon after their marriages would not repeat itself in my daughters’ lives. And then I thanked Him for being there with us through it all, keeping the promise that we do not ever walk in darkness without light to reveal the next steps.
I hoped Roy and Lizzie would consider living with us after they married, just as Frank and I had lived with my parents for several years. I’d made comments about how nice it would be to have another grandchild born in this room, but Lizzie had remained quiet. I should have prayed for patience. Instead, I prayed that Martha would find a suitor to her liking and Fritz would settle down too. We could add on to the house, if need be. I would move the lilacs to make room.
Not much was in bloom on March 9, 1909, when Lizzie and Roy Mills spoke their vows. (It was two days after Luther Burbank’s birthday.) But we did indeed have crocuses and just a few daffodils budding out. The lilacs with their heart-shaped glossy leaves and buds looked ready, but they hadn’t popped, that spring being cooler than normal and rain having poured twenty-eight days of the last thirty-two. Lizzie chose a small wedding with just family and a few of Roy’s friends, including Dr. Hoffman. No music students, no neighbors other than family, of course.
We listened to the vows and drove back to the farm, all of us. I remembered Martha telling me at the girls’ first weddings how those ancient gods hated it when morta
ls looked too happy without their help. She called it hubris. Silly, I know, but every now and then, Barney Reed’s chattering about my work made me wonder if what I did in my garden changing lilacs really did offend God, and if so, would He find a way to punish my hubris yet again.
As we neared the farm, I decided such unhealthy thoughts should be set aside, not pondered on a daughter’s wedding day. Instead, I vowed to speak of them with the reverend, soon.
My sisters had left the church earlier and had already set out dishes of food. Martha quickly joined as Nelia dashed around, pouring coffee for the men. I watched my daughter with her new husband, smiling, open as a lily, and I was so grateful. Then Lizzie sat down at the piano, adding something special to the reception at our house.
“This is a composition I’ve been working on for a while. I want to play it for my new husband.” Roy’s faced turned a lovely shade of red—the very color I wish I could get a lilac to give me. “I call it ‘Take His Hand.’ ” I recognized a few sections as portions she’d worked on, but I had never heard it all put together. We all applauded when she finished. Roy bent down and whispered in her ear, and she laughed, a sound as free and open as a brook. Irvina scurried up beside her and began one-finger pounding.
“Your next student,” Edmond said before Delia whisked her daughter away to laughter.
When Lizzie and I were alone upstairs, as she changed from her wedding dress to a traveling frock, I asked her if it was Fred’s song she’d played.
“It started out to be for him, but as time went on, I realized that music speaks to the living not the dead. Fred would have wanted me to sing for the living. So the song is about taking the hand of a true love and going as far as you’re allowed, and then having the courage to believe you can take another when the time is right.”
“That’s beautiful,” I said. It was.
Later that day, we waved good-bye as the couple drove off in their new Model T Ford. They planned a honeymoon trip to California, where Roy “promised” Lizzie it wouldn’t be raining.