All That Lives (7 page)

Our Sunday supper began routinely. Father said the prayers and Mother said Amen, and Chloe served a hen, with ash-roasted
potatoes. The smell of wild garlic followed her around the table as she bent to tend to our plates and I felt very hungry.

“Miz Lucy, I done most of the washing up and I done set the beans to soak for tomorrow, and I was wondering if I might leave
a little early so I can get home to my girls. They like it when I’m there before the dark.” Chloe spoke softly to my mother,
but we all heard her request to be dispatched to her cabin.

“This chicken is so tender I believe you must’ve wrung its neck with kindness, Chloe. Certainly, you may depart.” Mother waved
her out the door and I chewed and swallowed my first delicious mouthful, thinking it was often lately Chloe did beg to be
excused. Abruptly Father pushed his chair away from the table.

“I cannot eat.” His voice was hoarse and he held his throat in his hand, assuming an expression of great discomfort.

“Jack, you look so pale. What is the matter?” Mother set her fork down and turned to him, concerned. Father shook his head,
apparently unable to speak. He stood, one hand at his throat, using the table edge for support. Mother also rose and, putting
his arm around her shoulder, she helped him to the parlor. John Jr. and I stopped eating and followed them, to see what was
the matter.

“Something, a twig, is in my throat,” he gasped.

“Good Lord, pray it is not a bone. Open your mouth wide, Jack.” Mother held a lamp above him, peering down into his throat.
“I see nothing there. Most likely you have swallowed a bit of salt bread the wrong way.”

“Water,” Father breathed, and John Jr. went to fetch it.

“Betsy, return to the table. Your father will be fine.” Mother did not want me there and I did as she said, but it was difficult
to believe Father would be fine, especially when I heard him choking out his words.

“Lucy, there is something … sideways in my throat…. I cannot swallow.”

“Drink this, Jack. Here, John Jr., help me get him to the bed.” At the table, Drewry, Richard and Joel looked at me, concern
evident in their eyes.

“Is Father ill, sister?” Joel asked.

“So it would appear, but Mother says it’s nothing, we must not worry. We must finish our supper without them.” This was most
unusual, as we always ate together, except during the harvest or market days when Father and John Jr. might be absent. We
very rarely sat at supper without Mother. We chewed carefully, and did not talk. When we had finished, we had to clear away
the plates and do our own washing up out back of the kitchen in the washing tub Chloe had thoughtfully filled with warm water.
The light was fading slowly and the sky was a pure turquoise color, its shades of blue defined by the black silhouettes of
the trees. I felt uncomfortable in the growing dark and I hurried through the task, running back inside with the boys. We
slid the wooden bolt across the door.

Mother had dosed Father with valerian and slippery elm and he had fallen fast asleep. She and John Jr. had moved him to his
bed and she had readied two lamps for the boys and me to carry upstairs.

“Will you tuck me in, Mother? Please?” I allowed my fear to be present in my plea, and she nodded and followed me up to my
room.

“Is Father ill?” I asked as I climbed under my quilts, hoping she would stay with me until I was asleep.

“He is simply tired, Miss Betsy, and much in need of rest.”

“What will happen in the night?” I feared he would be too tired to awake and help us pray and defend against the coming unknown.

“Perhaps the Lord has heard our prayers and tonight our sleep will be undisturbed.”

“Do you really think so?” It seemed unlikely to me, as I had grown quickly accustomed to expecting the worst.

“Would I say so, if I did not?” Mother bent and kissed my cheek and I could tell she planned to depart.

“I will say another prayer for Father before I go to sleep.”

“Yes, Betsy, think of others always first, and the Lord will think of you.” She paused briefly at my door to smile good night,
before hurrying downstairs. It was difficult to sleep, as I expected any moment an obscene assault of noise and abuse, but
remarkably I did soon doze, and did not awake until the day had come. I was amazed to discover the night had passed as Mother
had predicted, unfettered with harassment.

At the breakfast table Father appeared completely recovered from what had ailed him the night before, as he was eating a hearty
portion of porridge with molasses, and a plate of bacon, ham, red gravy and biscuits sat before him.

“Praise the Lord, children, for all His blessings.” Mother nodded discreetly in Father’s direction, but I was more impressed
with our undisturbed evening of sleep than I was with his swift healing. “Your slates have been gathering dust.” She smiled
her pleasure over our quiet night behind the thin lip of her teacup as though she felt our trials were over. “Chloe has packed
your dinners into your satchels and it’s past time you set off for lessons.”

“Yea, get your learning,” Father said, ripping his meat into two pieces with his fingers. “But, Drewry Bell, I should like
to feed my owl today, so you must do your duty there before you go running off.” Father kept an owl as a pet in his tobacco
barn, having found the creature when it was just an owlet while he was clearing a field in the autumn. Injured and left to
die by its mother, Father had cared for it and easily nursed it back to health, as its problem was a simple sprain of the
wing. The owl had grown into a magnificent tawny bird with a great ruffle of white around its neck, like the extravagant collars
of French kings in our schoolbooks. Father had braided a long leather leash for it and kept his owl tethered to a post in
the barn. On occasion he took him out to fly, but always trussed to the leash, so he could go no farther than halfway up the
tall elms by the fields.

My brothers were required to catch sparrows and mice to feed the owl and they each had their own methods for doing so and
they each said their method was the best, as boys do, but Drewry’s seemed most sensible to me. He laid scratch and chicken
feed in the dusty path as bait for his trap, then with a river rock he propped up a great wooden bowl, into the side of which
he had driven a nail and affixed a length of twine. This string he carried in his hand while he hid behind the barn. When
the sparrows came to peck the scratch, Drewry yanked the twine and brought the bowl down, trapping them inside. He used an
old piece of tin to slide under the bowl, and when it was turned right side up the catch was handily delivered to Father,
who liked to feed his owl privately. None of us ever asked to accompany him for we all knew when Father went to feed his owl
it was his time alone.

“But, Father,” Drewry answered his charge, “it will take some time for me to catch your sparrows, and Mother has just requested
our lessons be attended to.” Drewry poured innocence thicker than Chloe’s molasses into his tone and I supposed he was not
in a bird-catching mood.

“You then, John Jr., will you do my bidding?” Father exchanged a quick glance with Mother when Drewry bowed his head as though
Drew had disappointed him, but John Jr. proved he was the son Father could rely on.

“I will gladly do the duty while my brother receives an education,” John Jr. said, wiping his mouth tidily with his napkin.
I wondered what method he would use. He was skilled with his rifle and had just the week before succeeded in barking up a
squirrel. The poor animal had been secure at the top of an elm in the woods when the ball shot from John Jr.’s gun hit the
trunk of the tree beneath its belly, driving off a piece of bark as large as my hand, and with it the squirrel, without a
wound or a ruffled hair, killed by the long fall to the ground. I wondered if he could do the same to sparrows but I did not
care enough to stay at home and see it. I was excited to go to the schoolhouse.

“The rest of you be off, then,” Mother said, walking us to the door where she had arranged our satchels for distribution to
our shoulders. “Remember, tell no one, Miss Betsy,” she whispered in my ear, adjusting the leather strap of my bag.

“I know, Mother.” I kissed her cheek, anxious to catch up with my brothers, for they were already running down the hill, past
the well. I reached them where our path met the Adams―Cedar Hill high road and together we continued running and skipping,
enjoying the glorious spring morning, smelling the delicious red earth, lush and steaming in the early sun. I wished to stop
and stare at the brilliant stand of red sassafras and wild iris blooming by the roadside, but as a group we were anxious to
reach the schoolhouse. We ran until we turned right off the road, onto our special trail through the hazel thicket, and there
we were forced to walk single file through a tunnel of brambles. John Jr. had recently whacked through it with a machete,
so no stray twigs caught at our clothing, but it did slow us down some. I was glad when we reached the place where the path
let out and met the road at the wooden bridge where we could cross the Red River.

Steam rose off the planks as they warmed to the morning sun and, beyond the bridge, shining on its own green knoll, stood
our pleasant white clapboard schoolhouse. Without warning, I was overcome with emotion and I had to stop a minute to collect
myself. I felt as if I’d been released from a nightmare and was awakening to a routine I had previously taken entirely too
much for granted.

“Hurry up, sister!” The boys and Drewry passed in front of me while I took a moment to fill my lungs with the spring air,
adjusting the strap of my satchel across my breast. Perhaps I would have a chance to tell Thenny about becoming a woman. I
looked down and saw a fish jump for its breakfast in the fast muddy water and I hurried after my brothers, marching up the
hill in a triumphant parade.

“Good day, good day, pupils, lovely Miss Elizabeth.” Professor Powell gave us a warm welcome, and I smiled and curtsied and
took the closest seat, vowing I would appear more myself than I had the day before at church.

“Bet-
see
had best-
be
recovered!” Thenny cried, singsong, during our game of tag at the dinner recess. She caught my skirt and I gave chase to
her all about the lawn, thankful for her good nature, as it felt wonderful to have a laugh and to play. It was not until I
was amongst the other children that I fully realized how unsettling the sleepless evenings at our house had truly been. How
to be myself without speaking of how I was altered? Who was I before I was scared out of my wits? I did not wish to think
on my future at all. I marked my brothers’ whereabouts from the corners of my eyes, but a tension I had not known I possessed
began to slip off my body as my feet slipped over the slicker places in the new grass while playing tag.

“Watch out, Betsy Bell!” Joshua Gardner, who was several years older than me and known by all the pupils for his keen intellect,
played the game with us and it gave me a sudden pleasure to hear my name on his tongue. Professor Powell rang the bell at
the doorway far too soon, but during the geography lesson I stole glances at handsome Josh from under my bonnet ties, hoping
he did not see me looking. He was Professor Powell’s most exalted student and I had heard much was expected from his future.
The Professor’s sonorous reading allowed my mind to soak up new thoughts, about the woolly mammoths in China, grammar and
geography. The hours of the afternoon passed swiftly by. At the end of the day Professor Powell loaded our satchels with new
Dilworth primers, then dismissed us, and my brothers and I emerged from the schoolhouse into a pink spring sunset.

“So, Betsy, will you come again for lessons?” Thenny asked. She had to rush away, as her father expected her to lend a hand
selling hard penny candy at the store after school. I looked and saw him smoking as usual on his porch. He waved his pipe,
gesturing Thenny ought to hurry, as groups of the smaller children, freed from their lessons, were racing down the road. I
regretted there had been no opportunity to talk privately with her.