Authors: Donna Mabry
Every member of our little church was there for
the ceremony. Brother Clark had me recite the passage
from Ruth he’d given me to memorize,
“Whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou
lodgest, I will lodge, and thy people shall be my people
and thy God, my God.”
I promised to love and obey James, and he
promised to love and cherish me. I hoped that James
and I would have the same kind of marriage that I
thought my parents had, the same kind that Brother
and Sister Clark seemed to have. I’d noticed them
many times, holding hands as they stood together, the
love on Sister Clark’s face when she watched her
husband talk. It was the way it had been for my Mom
and Daddy.
The women cried at the service. At the little party
at the Connor house, the men slapped James on the
back, poked him in the ribs, and gave him knowing
looks. It made me uneasy. I wasn’t sure what-all being
married involved. The only talk I’d ever heard about
what happened between married men and women had
come from my few girlfriends, and they didn’t know
much more about it than I did.
Every family brought a gift of some sort for
Us. There were linens, oil lamps, and bowls. None of
them could afford much, but we were thrilled. I’d
never been treated so warmly in my life.
After the service and the party, James and I went
home to the cabin. Tommy had already brought my
things, my bed and bureau and a pretty cedar chest he
made for me as another wedding present. He’d carved
the bottom of it into curved legs and put a leather
handle on the front. It replaced the old one that I used
at Helen’s house. Helen packed it with the
homemaking things that I’d collected over the last two
years. My friends and I began our hope chests when
we turned twelve, the way girls do. We talked about
what we wanted and the colors and things.
As much as I loved Helen and her baby, Faith, I
always dreamed of having my own home and my own
family. Whatever money I was given by Helen over
the years was spent mostly on fabric for linens and
things to go into my chest. It was the closest thing to a
dowry I had, and I was glad I’d made the effort and
hadn’t spent my few dollars on ribbons for my hair or
candy the way some of my friends did. There wasn’t
as much in the chest as I would have liked, but I didn’t
often get cash, and I hadn’t expected to marry so early.
James and I puttered around the cabin for a
while, re-arranging the few pieces of furniture and
placing our other things in logical locations. It was a
warm evening, and there was no need for a fire in the
fireplace. When the sun began going down, James lit
one of the oil lamps.
I tried to keep looking busy, but finally there was
nothing else for us to do. It had been a long day. James
blushed and said, “I guess it’s time to go to bed.”
My heart began beating faster. I was afraid, and
I was curious, too. “I guess so,” I agreed. I took my
nightgown out of the bureau and laid it on the bed. I
looked around for somewhere to change. I loved my
little cabin, but there was no place for me to go to and
undress and put on my pretty new night gown. James
realized I was embarrassed.
“Uh, I have to go out back,” he said. “I’ll be back
in a minute.”
“All right,” I smiled. Even though James had left
the cabin, I slipped the nightgown over my head and
down around me before I unbuttoned my dress and let
it fall. I hung it up, took off the rest of my underclothes,
and peeled off my stockings and put them in my shoes.
I folded back the covers and got in the bed, sliding over
to the side near the wall.
After a few minutes, James came in. He carried
the lamp to the bedside table and blew it out. In the
moonlight that came through the windows I could see
him getting out of his clothes. He slid in bed next to
me. I thought about what Helen told me.
James nuzzled my neck. In all the time I’d
known him, the only touch between us had been
holding hands and the quick kiss at the church when
we were pronounced husband and wife.
I liked the feel of his kiss on my neck. I tilted my
head so he would know that it gave me pleasure. Then
he put his hand on my breast and I thought about what
Helen said, my body got all stiff. James drew back his
hand. “I love you, Maude. I promise I won’t hurt you.”
I lay there next to him in the darkness. I had
every reason to believe him. “I know you won’t,” I
whispered, and he didn’t.
The next morning, I woke to the sound of wood being
chopped. There was a fire in the fireplace and a pot of
water boiling on the hook. James came in with his
arms full of firewood and dropped it into the little box
next to the hearth.
“Good morning.” He sat on the side of the bed
and leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. “Now that
we’re married, I can kiss you every day, even on
Sunday.”
I felt my face turn red. I smiled at him. He
reached out and cupped my chin. “How you doing?
Are you all right?”
I understood what he meant and blushed even
more deeply. “I’m fine.”
He nodded, picked up a small package wrapped
in white paper from the table, and handed it to me. “Ma
gave me some corn meal for us to cook for breakfast.
We been invited to eat dinner at the house after
church.”
He stood, reached in his pocket, pulled out a
handful of change, and put it in my hand. “Here’s some
money. You can get what groceries we need in the
morning. I don’t know what all else we have to have.
Ma said we can share her washtub and stuff like that
for a while till we get our own.”
I held out my hand and looked at the money in
silence. When I had fetched groceries and things for
Helen, I’d just had the shopkeeper write it down in his
book. It dawned on me that I was really the woman of
the house now. It brought me a feeling of power.
James misunderstood my silence and crinkled up
his face. “Is that enough?”
I jumped a little. I’d been thinking so hard that
his voice surprised me, out of a trance almost. I looked
up at him with wide eyes. “I’m sure it’s fine. I don’t
really know how much I need. I hope I can do it right.”
“I guess we’ve both got a lot to learn, Maude.
Ma and Dad will help us with what we don’t know.
We’ll be all right.” He pulled me against him, and I
leaned into his shoulder. He was only eighteen, but he
felt so strong to me. My heart swelled with love for
him. He was my husband, and he had already given me
a home of my own. “I know we will.”
Once I was dressed, I ladled some of the water
into a smaller pan and boiled the corn meal. We ate it
without milk or sugar. I’d get us some Monday, at the
store. When we finished breakfast, we dressed and
walked to church with James’s parents.
I couldn’t help but feel that everyone was staring
at me. It was as if they expected me to make an
announcement of some sort. Some of the women
looked at me so sadly it made me wonder what they
were thinking. James took another round of backslapping and rib-poking from some of the men. He just
smiled quietly, letting them enjoy the brotherhood of
married men.
I said good morning to my girlfriends, but they
looked different to me that morning. I felt that I’d gone
to a place they hadn’t, and that I would never be able
to feel that same childlike kinship with them again.
James reached for me in the dark almost every
night. I didn’t understand what he was feeling or why
he wanted to do that to me, but it didn’t take him very
long, and he was gentle, and I liked having him hold
me. After we were married four months, he’d still
never seen me without my underwear, but I wasn’t shy
about undressing in front of him. He always sort of
turned his eyes to avoid embarrassing me, but he didn’t
leave the cabin any more.
One night, I started to unbutton my dress and he
sat on one of the chairs and watched me. I waited for
him to look away, like he usually did, but he kept his
eyes on me. “Go ahead, Maude. I want to see you.”
I know I blushed. I could feel my face and
everything else go red, but I let my dress fall to the
floor and then stepped out of it. I picked it up and laid
it across the back of the other chair. Then I unbuttoned
my shimmy. I dropped it, stepped out of it, and stood
there naked, my eyes still on the wooden planks.
James stood and put his arms around me, then
tilted my head back and kissed me. “Maude, you’re a
good wife. You’ve never turned me down yet, but I
know this hasn’t meant as much to you as it has to me.
I talked to Brother Clark about it, and he said that the
marriage bed is blessed and that we should both enjoy
it. He talked to me straight out about the whole thing.”
James stepped back and undressed himself. I had
never seen his member in the light. I couldn’t help but
stare at it, and that didn’t seem to bother him. His parts
appeared to have a curious arrangement to me. He led
me to the bed and took his time, practicing what the
preacher had told him. That night, for the first time, I
found out what it was he liked so much. I knew I’d
always be grateful to Brother and Sister Clark.
Except for still being sad sometimes about not
getting to finish school, I was happy, so happy I can’t
even tell how much. Our lives settled into a pleasant
pattern. James would leave for the store each morning
to work with his father. I would clean and do my
chores, go to the store, and do some sewing or
whatever else came to my attention. I helped Mom
Connor in her garden the same way I’d helped my own
mother. Our meals were simple, and I knew I was a
good cook. We had corn meal mush or oatmeal for
breakfast every day except Sunday, when we had
oatmeal and eggs. James would come home at noon
for dinner. I’d been given enough pots and pans to
make different kinds of meals for him. We ate our main
meal at noon, leaving the leftovers covered with a
cloth on the table for a small supper at the end of the
day. I dreamed of the day I could get a real stove that
burned wood like the kind my mother had. There were
only a few things I could make in a fireplace, mostly
stews and soups. On Sundays, there was no cooking
except for breakfast, but I would help Mom Connor
make the meal on Saturday and when we came home
from church, I helped put out the dinner we made the
day before, and we ate with his mom and dad.
I prided myself on how clean and orderly I kept
our little cabin. James put up a coop in back so we
could keep our own chickens, and I put a vegetable
garden of my own next to it, things Mom Connor
didn’t care to grow, like lettuce. I planted flowers
around the front steps and down each side of the
pathway leading to the cabin.
I was fond of James’s parents and didn’t mind
asking his mother for advice on the garden and other
things around the cabin. We women developed a
genuine bond. We sometimes cooked together, and it
reminded me of the time I’d spent in my mother’s
kitchen.
In the afternoons I often visited Helen and
played with the baby. Faith looked more like her
mother and grandmother every day. Her hair had
begun forming soft curls. I cherished my precious little
niece. When it was time for her nap, I would rock her
in the kitchen where I’d rocked her the night she was
born. When she became drowsy, I would carry her to
her room and stroke her head until she was asleep.
Helen would buy little remnants from the fabric
bolts at the store, and I still made the gowns that Faith
wore. Helen was a pretty good seamstress, just like the
all other women in the town, but she didn’t take the
joy in sewing that I did.
The days were growing shorter, and oil was too
expensive to use often, so after dinner James and I
would sit on the front porch of our cabin until dusk and
talk about his work at the store, the people he’d seen
during the day, and our dreams for our life. On
Saturdays he played baseball. He still had hopes of a
professional career. It was 1906 and another league,
the American, had been formed to compete with the
National. Baseball was sweeping the country. They’d
even begun forming teams all the way across the
ocean, in Europe.
One Monday in late September, I was spooning
the cornmeal mush into the bowls for our breakfast,
and my stomach felt as if it were rushing up into my
throat. I barely made it out the front door before I
heaved up a thick yellow liquid. It scalded my throat.
I leaned over the porch rail for a long time, finally just
spitting out the water that formed inside my mouth to
rinse away the awful taste. After a few minutes, I felt
better and went back inside. I scooped a dipper of
water out of the bucket and sipped it until my throat
stopped burning.
The next morning, it happened again. By the end
of the week I was throwing up three or four times a
day, mostly in the morning. James told his mother, and
Mrs. Connor came down to the cabin to see me. She
stared in my eyes with a smile, “When did you bleed
the last time, Maude?” she asked.
I thought it over. “About eight or nine weeks
ago.”
“Well, you take it easy for a while, at least until
you get past the third month. Don’t be fetching water
or picking up anything heavy. Let James do all that for
you. You don’t want anything to happen to the baby.”
I stared at her. “Baby?”
Mrs. Connor laughed. “Baby! Didn’t you know
you were in a family way? I figure by early spring
you’ll be a momma.”
It all made sense. I remembered how Helen had
been sick in the mornings the times she was that way.
I grabbed Mom Connor and hugged her tight. I was so
happy. I would have a baby of my own to love. I felt it
was the greatest thing that could happen to me.
When James came home, I could hardly wait to
run out and meet him with the news. He grinned from
ear-to-ear. He had suspected as much.
“Do you think I should build onto the cabin so
he can have his own room?”
I shook my head. “Not right away, maybe next
summer. I want to have my baby sleeping right here
where I can be close and know that it’s all right.”
James held me close to him and kissed my
forehead. “You let me know what I ought to do to help
you. We don’t want to take any chances. We want him
to be big and healthy.”
“I’ll take care. Your mom said for me not to lift
anything heavy, like the water buckets, for a few
months.” I didn’t say anything to discourage James
about it being a boy. All men wanted sons, especially
the firstborn, but in my heart I already knew it would
be a girl. I hoped it would look like my mother and
share Faith’s blonde curls.
That night, when I undressed, I held my palm
against my stomach. I closed my eyes and imagined
my baby could hear my voice. “I’m going to love you
and take care of you the best I know how. I’m going to
make you little dresses and gowns with flowers
stitched on them, and when your hair gets long
enough, if it doesn’t curl on its own, I’m going to wind
it up in curls every night.” I patted my tummy and the
precious life inside it and smiled to myself. I was so
happy.
The morning sickness passed in a few weeks. I
was grateful I didn’t suffer with it the way Helen had,
almost until the end of her time. After a while, my
clothes began to tug across my middle. I had taken to
lifting the waistline a little to ease the pull. James’s
mother brought me some big aprons and some new
fabric.
“If you wear an apron you don’t have to button
your dress in the middle, and that will get you through
part of the time. I brought you this fabric for an early
birthday present. There’s enough here that you can
make yourself two dresses to wear for later, when you
get too big for the ones you have. After the baby
comes, you can cut them over to make regular
dresses.”
I was so thankful. I had never in my life had two
new dresses at one time. I would have one to wear and
one to wash. I hugged my mother-in-law with a tear in
my eye. “You’re so good to me. Thank you so much.”
Mom Connor patted me on the back, “You’re a
good girl, Maude. I can see that James is happy with
you. You keep a clean house, and you’re a good cook,
and my boy goes around with a smile on his face. I
couldn’t ask for more than that from any daughter-inlaw.”
I couldn’t help but grin from ear-to-ear. It felt
good to be appreciated. I’d heard how some girls hated
their husband’s mother. I felt I must be the luckiest
wife in the world.
It was a mild winter that year. Snow dusted the
ground but didn’t stay long. It didn’t take much to heat
the cabin, but James kept the firewood bin filled
anyway. One day he brought home a smooth, wide
plank about eight feet long. He propped it up on the
front porch while he unfolded a brown paper pattern
and drew the outline of it on the wood, then he cut
around the lines, sanded the edges, and put the pieces
together. I’d wrapped myself with a blanket over my
coat so I could sit outside and watch him. He wouldn’t
tell me what he was up to, but it wasn’t long before I
figured it out. It was a cradle for the baby. I was so
proud of him. I’d had no idea he could do such a thing.
He held it up in front of me. “That ought to hold him
for a while.”
“It’s wonderful!” I said. “I love it.”
James took his time smoothing out the rough
edges of the wood and then carried the cradle in the
cabin and placed it in the corner by our bed. He gave
one corner of it a push and it rocked for a long time
before it stopped.
“That’s how you can tell the bottom is even on
both ends, it rocks smooth,” James said, obviously
proud of his work. I wrapped my arms around him and
leaned my head on his shoulder. The baby was turning
around in my growing tummy. He could feel it kicking
against his side.
“He’s about to bust out of there now. It’s a good
thing we got a bed to put him in.”
I just smiled. Yes, it was a good thing we had a
bed for my little girl. I was so happy, so very, very
happy.