This Road We Traveled

  The following day, the family held a final gathering at Orus’s home with food and laughter and music. She heard Virgil say, “This is a fine land, Orus. I see why you settled it and am grateful you came back to Missouri to tout its virtue. Otherwise we might not have had our farm along Pringle Creek.”

  “Nor family within wagon distance either,” Orus said.

  “You certainly captured Mama,” Pherne told him. “I don’t think she’ll ever come back to Salem, will you?” Tabby sat in a rocker out on the grass close by.

  “The orphans captured Marm. As one might capture young Clark, there too.” Orus nodded toward his nephew and Catherine Sager, who had come along to help serve the food that Tabby contributed. The closeness of their faces, and the smiles, told stories.

  “You’d think in her old age Mrs. Brown would like to bask on the throne of a harp-backed chair,” Virgil said, “instead of kneading dough.”

  “I’ll take my throne in heaven, if I’m so fortunate,” Tabby told them. “There’s too much to be done here on earth before my light is spent.”

  “Did Uncle John teach you how to play the violin?” Virgilia said.

  “He did. At the boardinghouse, though my screeching the gut strings seemed to put his ears in pain.” The group laughed. “What happened to his violin?”

  Pherne said, “He wanted you to have it. Virgil drew it from the buckboard.” Her husband grinned. “John said you’d proved that there was always time to learn something new.”

  Tabby clutched the violin, ran her hands on the smooth wood as she listened with a new ear to her family’s sharing. She’d heard many of the stories before and understood that was how family culture was passed on from one generation to the next. From Orus and Pherne to her grandchildren. She missed Manthano, but he was a part of the story too, the one who stayed behind, who chose not to go.

  Nellie and Judson had joined the gathering. Tabby thought a tension between the two had lessened as an old wagon spring does over time. So a part of her was not as surprised as the others seemed to be when Judson made his announcement.

  “We’re heading to California, me and Nellie.”

  “To the gold fields?” Virgil put a slice of ham on a half loaf of Tabby’s bread, buttered the other half. Ham and jams and jellies and sliced cucumbers and even a green-striped melon with a pink center covered the planks set up as a table. Beatrice clucked beneath the boards.

  “No. To see if we can find Nellie’s parents. Someone suggested that might be a good occupation, awhile back.” He looked at Tabby.

  “Will you get married first?” Sarelia asked the question the others had likely wished to but had kept their peace.

  “No. We’ll travel as brother and sister. Good friends helping each other along the way. Like you and Captain John did, Mrs. B.”

  Tabby wondered if Nellie saw things quite the same, but time would tell whether a friendship could become a love affair even without that moment of being smitten that marked so many marriage stories. She thought Clark and Catherine would have one of the latter to tell.

  But none would be as hers and Dear Clark’s had been, resisting his proposals twice before she agreed on the third time. She was a stubborn soul. Had been, she corrected herself.

  The men explored various aspects of the journey, and Nellie Louise and Virgilia exchanged pleasantries, walking arm in arm. The girls had renewed their friendship in these days of visiting, a value in simply chatting and listening, one Tabby didn’t always give merit to.

  She wished she could paint this picture of her family, wished she’d had Pherne sketch one when they left Missouri. It would be fun to compare it to now, at Forest Grove. She’d begun thinking of this cluster of houses as Forest Grove. In two short years their lives had sprung wings that took them to wonderful places. How life had startled her along the way. And could yet again, she imagined.

  “I . . . I think, Mama . . .” Virgilia reached out to Nellie Louise’s arm, her face white. “I . . . my water . . .” Her eyes were as startled as a deer’s. “The baby . . .”

  And there it was, another story for the telling, offered when she least expected.

  33

  Frontiers

  “Gentlemen, it is time to build another structure. That way these buildings we’ve been sharing with the school can go strictly to boarding the children.” Tabby met monthly with the former missionaries, now pastors and teachers, to discuss issues of the boardinghouse and school. Children came and left, swept the floor around them. It was after teaching hours, and older girls watched the venison roast Tabby had steaming while the boys milked the two cows. A constant influx of children came into her care—those whose parents had died or who scattered to find work or sought their fortunes somewhere else, being shaped for a time without their kin. People from across the territory had heard of the woman who took children in and gave them love and sustenance. Some days, Tabby felt like she’d stepped into a nursery rhyme as an old woman in a shoe with so many children she didn’t know what to do. Except that Tabby did know what to do. “The new structure should be set aside for a dedicated school.”

  “Dedicated.” There were mumblings among the men.

  “Yes, with trustees to bring education to a new level.”

  “We’ve had a school here off and on for some time, Tabby. Is there a need for such formal action?”

  “I think there is. Here’s my story, gentlemen. Years ago, I moved my family from Maryland to the fledgling town of St. Charles, Missouri, in part because of the Catholic Sisters academy there. Yes, it was a burgeoning hub on the Santa Fe Trail and a grand blend of French and Spanish and frontier activity. Yes, it was close to St. Louis, that jumping-off place of new beginnings in the West. But I knew that an education was what truly mattered. A city that sees the importance of feeding minds, as well as bodies, is a lure. Your Methodist missionaries thought the same when they began the Oregon Institute, I suspect.”

  “But they had to close it,” one of the missionaries reminded her. “It was too ambitious, the idea of it.”

  “I heard that you ran out of students back in the ’30s, that there weren’t that many Indian children and the missionaries weren’t populating well.”

  “Are we so likely to attract that many students in our little grove here? I mean, if Salem couldn’t sustain it.” This from another of the group.

  “They had to move the mission because of the Willamette flooding and the ague, that’s how I remember it,” Harvey Clark said. “And it may reopen one day. It’s still chartered, I believe, and—”

  “You’re thinking of a university?” Emeline Clark expressed her surprise. Tabby was surprised she’d interrupted her husband.

  “Yes, a university built in a climate of both educated citizenry and mild winters, with no flooding. It’s the perfect place.” Tabby’s heart hesitated, but she knew this was her next frontier. “More people will come when they hear of a good institution of learning.” If she couldn’t convince these men and women so close to all their efforts, how would they ever convince a legislature to accept a charter? “Let’s see if I can get you to think with wings and not just your feet.”

  Emeline frowned.

  “Institutes of higher learning are essential for a thriving society,” Tabby said. “They attract dreamers, people with bigger ideas for the betterment of all. Oregon will be a state one day, and what better way to support that effort than to show that we are committed to that factor of civilization that best prepares our children and our nation for a prosperous future: building up a university.” She inhaled. “Such a long speech.” She folded her hands and leaned forward on the table. “It begins with us in our little school. We’ll call it the Tualatin Academy and name trustees.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Abigail Smith chimed in, and Tabby couldn’t tell if she supported the idea or found it wanting.

  “For heaven’s sake, yes,” Tabby said. “And for our children.”

  “The building I can see,”
Harvey Clark told her. “But let’s pray about the university.”

  “Fine with me. The Lord’s familiar with the subject.”

  A few days later, the community rallied, and before the first dusting of snow sifted across the grove, Tabby had her boardinghouse only—and the new log structure became a school and church. Eight men agreed to serve as trustees. Tualatin Academy had begun.

  Tabby found herself singing to the children, grateful her voice still held despite her age. She improved on John’s violin, in her humble opinion. The children loved Beatrice, who tolerated their pets. Daily, Tabby thanked God for this joy in her “spent light.” She remembered with embarrassment her expression that day to Harvey Clark wondering why “Providence had frowned” upon her, leaving her poor. She’d been rich as a queen all along and hadn’t noticed.

  Judson and Nellie prepared for California shortly after the new building had been chinked.

  “I wish you’d wait until spring,” Tabby said. “The mountains, snow and all.”

  “We’ve talked with trappers,” Judson said. “The passes are open still. We can cross them and be in the Sacramento Valley before the weather sets in.” He paused. “Maybe we should stay longer, to get the kinks out of the new structure for you.” Defeat came easily from his tongue.

  “I understand.” She patted his shoulder, rose from the table they sat at to get him more hot water for his tea. She refilled Nellie’s cup too. “You have a way to make. Taking horses or a wagon?”

  “We’ll each ride a horse, and Judson’s going to let me lead the pack mule.” Nellie’s eyes sparkled at the possibility.

  “I can’t handle reins and a pack line both, now can I?”

  Nellie stepped right over his retort. “I’m glad you’ll let me do it. The mule we have is big with friendly eyes. It’s a grand adventure we’re undertaking. I’m so grateful for Judson’s planning for all this. I would never imagine trying to find my parents alone.”

  Judson grunted. Tabby hoped Nellie knew what she was getting into. This trip could tax her generous heart but might be the mirror Judson needed to see his own capabilities. Nellie loved him whole, even if he didn’t see himself that way.

  Tabby saw them off in the morning. She waved, pulled her shawl tighter around her, then loosened the strings holding her hair covering. They tickled on her neck. A light mist filtered over her. People came. People left. They couldn’t be kept, not if they paid attention to both their feet and their wings.

  Clark pulled the wagon up before Virgilia and Fabritus’s cabin. Albro opened the cabin door and Rem bounded off the porch, tail wagging. But before Clark could step down to help his sister and her child, Virgilia gasped. Fabritus followed Albro out of the house. He was at her side in an instant.

  “Fabritus! Oh, oh, I’m so glad you’re—”

  “Here. So am I, I’ve—” He stopped when he saw her hand Clark the bundle from her arms. Fabritus helped her down, his strong arms held her close, and then released her as she reached for the bundle that wiggled and cooed.

  “A baby?” Fabritus’s voice sounded hoarse, even deeper than it had been.

  “I didn’t know before you left, at least for certain. And he came a little early.”

  “He?”

  “I named him Virgil, after my father. I hope that’s all right. And it’s a distinctive name for our widely used Smith.”

  “Virgil’s a great name.” He took both mother and son into his arms, wrapping his bigness around them. The scent of her husband, the brush of his beard on her cheek, the feel of his hands on her back through her shawl and her dress, felt like wings fluttering out from her heart.

  She sighed deeper into his arms, tears moving down her cheeks. She felt Virgil squirm ever so little. “Oh, we might be crushing our baby here.” She laughed and pulled back, but Fabritus put both of his hands on either side of her cheeks and gazed at her, then bent to kiss her lips.

  “How I have missed you, Missus Smith.”

  “And I you, Mister Smith. Now, meet your son.”

  Virgilia loved seeing her husband hold his child for the first time. She hadn’t thought of mothering as also giving a gift, but it felt like that. She offered up this precious life that both had promised to care for when he was only an idea in their hearts, nothing more.

  “Now there are three of us.” She pushed the blanket back away from the tiny face no larger than her palm.

  “Five,” Clark said. “There are five here right now, but Albro and I are leaving. Welcome back, Fabritus.” Her brother shook her husband’s hand. “And congratulations. You had quite a few proxies for you during the delivery of your child a few months back.”

  “I had him at Uncle Orus’s house. We’d all gathered for a picnic, getting ready to return, when Virgil . . . happened.”

  “He was born into a crowd. Maybe he’ll be a politician,” Albro teased.

  “I think that’s Fabritus’s future, but we’ll see,” Clark said.

  That evening Virgilia said, “Will you tell me of your war?” She nursed her son. Candles danced shadows on the walls.

  Fabritus stayed silent, drinking his mug of coffee. “It is not the conversation for a lady to hear.”

  “I’ve witnessed death and destruction.”

  “Maybe one day,” he said. “But I don’t want those days to hover over this one, the day I met my son.”

  “I wish you could have been a part of his arrival.”

  Fabritus put his mug down, reached for the baby. “No apologies. We begin this new chapter of our lives with neither of us carrying regrets. Agreed?”

  “I’m going to bake a cake,” she told her husband. “And frost it using Gramo’s pewter knife, broken as it is. In honor of our new son.”

  “Excellent.”

  Virgilia thought about her words, then to Fabritus she said, “Out here, people call icing ‘frosting.’ Even our words are changing.”

  “Along with us.”

  Virgilia wondered what regrets her husband had from his days of warring. But she would not press him. Her gramo always said it was the story keeper’s right to share or not and when to tell his tale.

  34

  As Vast as the Pacific

  What money Tabby made above the costs of boarding her charges, the trustees decided she could keep. And so she invested the dollar-a-week some families could afford to pay. She put her coins into land, into milk cows, bought small houses she rented to emigrants. And she gave back to the school to help cover teacher salaries. Being generous, Tabby decided, changed everything.

  “The legislature is in session,” Tabby told Harvey Clark one morning in 1851. “You’ve so generously given over a quarter section of ground for the higher school. The trustees have served two years already so they’re seasoned. It’s now or never to seek a university charter.”

  “So much business before them, Tabby. People have to sign up now for the land they claimed when they first came. Three hundred twenty acres they get instead of that 640 they’d been working. Unless they’re married. But there is disgruntlement. The legislature is allowing women to have land in their own name. I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

  “I’ve managed my money as well as many men.”

  “That you have.” He was quick to calm her. “And the trustees are grateful you’ve given some of that good management back to the academy. But maybe this isn’t the best time to press for more, is all I meant. The Yakima wars are costing the Territory plenty. The push to become a state takes revenue.”

  “I don’t want to hear all the reasons we can’t. I want to hear when you’re going to take the request. Even crusty old legislators need to have something hopeful to focus on. A university will appeal to their higher natures. I’d present our case myself, but they won’t let women, you know. Not proper.” Tabby pursed her lips, mocking some unknown gentleman responding to the very idea of a woman having a head for money management, let alone legislation.

  Harvey Clark chuckled. “I wish
you could take the request. Second best, you ought to come with us if I can cajole the others.”

  “I’ll convince the trustees, don’t you wonder about that.”

  “I suspect you will. You can sit outside the chambers and cheer us on, if nothing else. But first, we need to get the trustees on board. That won’t be easy, despite your . . . persuasive skills. The idea of a university is pie in the sky for many, even learned men of the cloth. They may not be up to the risk.”

  “Are you?”

  “If we don’t dream big, we’ll sleep small.”

  “‘We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep,’” Tabby quoted. “The Tempest. I have no time to snooze.”

  Pherne sang as she put her sketch pad away. In the three years since she’d found the hidden cabin, they’d added to it, plastered an inside wall, hung a bolt of cloth on others. Her home reflected warm light. The table and chairs shone with the polish she’d put on them. They’d given two harp-back chairs to Virgilia and Fabritus, but they still had three, the third a special gift.

  Virgil read beside the oil lamp as she wiped her hands and put some of Nellie’s lotion on them. She inhaled. Spring 1851. She’d be forty-six this month of March. Clark and Catherine Sager planned nuptials for the fall. But before then, Pherne would be a new mother. The question was whether the babe would arrive before her birthday or after.

  Virgil had been pleased when she’d told him. “Now it seems that you have truly forgiven me for taking you away from all you loved in Missouri, our Oliver’s grave especially.”

  “I needed to discover more awaited in my life. I spent too much time ruminating about the past.” Buddy groaned as he slept on the floor. “I even let the dog stay inside now, I’ve become so lax.” Virgil laughed. “All that time and I didn’t realize that the richness of a life comes with being generous.”