Authors: Donna Mabry
When I woke the next morning, George had already
gone downstairs. I dressed and went to check on Lulu.
Her bed was empty, too. I heard the sound of Lulu
laughing and followed it to the kitchen. Lulu was
sitting at the table eating a breakfast of hotcakes.
George’s mother was at the stove. She turned around
with a smile on her face that disappeared as soon as
she saw me standing in the doorway.
I smiled at her. “Good morning, Mrs. Foley.”
The old woman turned back to her cooking. I sat
at the table and took a deep breath. To Mrs. Foley’s
back, I said, “I must have been really tired. I don’t
know when I ever slept so late. I was wondering what
you’d like us to call you.”
Lulu piped up, “I’m going to call her
Grandmother. She said I could.”
I waited for an answer, but none came. “Should
I call you Mom Foley, or Mom, or Mrs. Foley? What
would be best?”
George’s mother put some hotcakes out of the
pan and onto a plate, then sat and began eating them
without giving me an answer. I saw that Lulu could
sense the situation. She tilted her head. “Grandmother,
I think my Mommy should call you Mom Foley, don’t
you?”
Mrs. Foley smiled at the child. “That’ll do as
well as anything else,” she said, still not looking at me.
I hadn’t eaten since the picnic supper the night
before, and I could see there wouldn’t be any hotcakes
made for me by my new mother-in-law. I stood and
went to stove.
“This is my kitchen,” Mrs. Foley said.
I don’t know where I got the backbone. It was
like with the dogs the night before. I turned and looked
her in the eye. “It
was
your kitchen. Now it’s either
yours, or mine, or we can share it. I’m a pretty good
cook, so they tell me. Maybe you’d like having
someone to help around here. Taking care of a big
house like this must wear out an old woman like you.”
I could see her teeth like one of the dogs. “I been
taking care of it just fine for forty years, ever since my
husband brought me here.”
I bit back a sharp answer and decided to make an
effort to be friendly. “Where are you from?”
Mrs. Foley sat up straight in her chair and jutted
out her chin. “I am from Oklahoma, born of the Big
Hill Osage tribe, the Wazhazhe. There was a time
when my people owned what is now three states. We
had many more horses than any of the other people.”
I was surprised. George had said nothing about
being Indian. I nodded, “I have some Indian blood
myself. My great-grandmother was Cherokee, from
eastern Tennessee, but she died before I was born. I
never got to know her. Tell me about George’s father.”
Mrs. Foley scowled. “He was a fool, a white
man, from a line of fools. He promised me many
things, but he lied. I should have married one of my
own people.”
She bent her head and went on eating. It was clear
she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. In the
daylight, she didn’t look any less scary than she had
the night before. Her skin was like dried-out leather
with deep lines, especially her forehead, as if a frown
was her permanent look, and there were lines like
trenches running from the sides of her nose down to
the corners of her mouth. Her hair was thin, and she
had pinned it in a bun at the back of her head. It was a
mixture of gray and white. I tried to picture her as a
young woman. I could see right off that George and
Bessie had to resemble their father, who must have
been quite handsome. Mrs. Foley was probably
attractive at one time, or she would never have caught
his attention.
What struck me as odd about her was that she
had beautiful hands. Even though they were rough and
calloused from work, they had long, tapered fingers
that reminded me of the woman who played piano at
our church.
My stomach wanted to be fed and poked at me.
I looked through the pantry until I found some corn
meal and a small pan. There was a bucket of water
sitting on the sideboard. The stove was still burning
high, so I dipped enough water in the pan and mixed
in the meal. When my mush started cooking, I poured
a cup of coffee out of the pot on the stove and took a
sip. It was so strong I winced. I spooned a little water
into my cup, and then I asked, “Where is George?”
“He went to his job. He said to tell you that if
you need him, ask anyone you see in town and they
will take you to him.”
I looked at Lulu. “I think I’ll go see where
George works. He said it was only two miles into
town. Do you want to go with me?”
Lulu had finished eating and jumped up. “Yes,
it’ll be fun to see the inside of a real jail.”
Neither of us had ever seen one. “All right, but
first, let’s unpack our things and put them away.” I
turned to my mother-in-law. “Do you take a lunch to
George?”
“No.”
“Well, I think I’ll ask him if he would like that.”
Mrs. Foley almost jumped to her feet. “I have to
feed the chickens,” she said, and went out the back
door, letting it slam.
I told Lulu, “Let’s see what this house looks like
in the daylight.” We started by looking around the
downstairs. There was a staircase built in the center,
right in front of the door, with a parlor on one side and
a dining room on the other. The parlor was furnished
with a settee and two chairs, tables, oil lamps, and a
few pictures hanging on the walls. I looked closely at
the pictures. One of them was a yellowing print of
what must have been George’s mother when she was a
young woman. I’d been right. She looked nothing like
Bessie, but was moderately attractive. The others were
of George and Bessie, but there was no trace of his
father.
Across the hall was another room that would
have been the dining room, but it had no furniture in
it. In the back of the house was the large kitchen, and
a small room lined with shelves that served as a pantry.
There was also a wash room with a small cabinet that
had shelves underneath for the towels, which were
neatly folded and stacked, but well-worn and
threadbare, and an ewer and pitcher on top. I wondered
where the well was.
None of the walls had been papered, but were
covered half-way up with planking and painted so long
ago that I couldn’t tell for sure what the color had been.
I thought it would be nice to put up paper and re-paint
the woodwork.
The house was clean, but everything in it was
shabby and worn. It didn’t look as if any effort had
been made to re-cover any of the upholstered pieces or
refinish any of the wooden furniture in years.
“Let’s look around upstairs,” I said to Lulu, and
we trooped up. There were four bedrooms, the one I’d
shared with George, the one where Lulu slept, another
one with no furniture at all and nothing on the walls,
and one with the door closed that I thought must be his
mother’s. I didn’t open the door and look inside.
Lulu’s room, the one that had been Bessie’s, had
a large bureau for her clothes, and there was plenty of
room for all of Lulu’s things. Clean white curtains with
a lacy edging hung on the window and there were
pretty pictures hanging over flowered paper. The
spread on the bed was also white, quilted beautifully,
and large enough to touch the floor on both sides.
There were several fluffy pillows on the bed, and
hand-tied rugs on the floor. It was by far the nicest
room in the house.
“You’ve got the prettiest room,” I said, hugging
my daughter to me. “Mom Foley told me last night that
it was your Aunt Bessie’s room.”
“Let’s go see your room,” she said.
The room that I was going to share with George
wasn’t at all attractive. The bedclothes were clean, but
like the towels, well-worn, even shabby. There were
no pictures on the wall.
Lulu looked a little sad. “It isn’t very nice,
Mom.”
I smiled at her. “Men don’t care about things like
that the way we do. It’ll be fun fixing it up, won’t it?
I’ll see if it’s all right with George for me to buy some
fabric for a new spread and to make some curtains.
Let’s leave the unpacking for later and go on in to town
and see how the stores are. Maybe we can pick out
some pretty paper, too.”
When Lulu and I left the house, we walked
across the road to get a look back at it. It was badly in
need of painting, and the steps were sagging in the
front. I would have to talk to George about that also.
I measured the distance to the next house, only a
short way down the road, counting the steps from my
front door to theirs. George told me his homestead was
about five acres and ran back to a stream on the rear
property line, but the houses were so close together, I
figured that they were both built on one corner of the
lots.
“Which way is it?” Lulu asked.
“I don’t know.” I started to go ask Mrs. Foley, but
thought better of it. “You run ask George’s mother.”
When Lulu came back, she pointed to the right.
“That way.”
As we walked toward the main part of town, I
thought about George’s father. My new husband had
never let on, and neither had Bessie, that their mother
was full-blooded Indian. I knew that many people
would have been ashamed to be half Indian, but the
truth was that nearly everyone I’d ever known had
some degree of Cherokee blood. I knew the tribe had
been friendly to the white man. Their daughters
married freely with frontiersmen of the time. Women
were in scarce supply, and the Cherokee people were
a handsome group.
George’s house was about a quarter mile from
the taller buildings that signaled the heart of town.
Kennett was much larger than my home town. Lulu
and I talked about our plans for decorating as we
walked. School was out until after the crops were
gathered, and I hoped I could keep Lulu’s mind off
having lost her friends. We passed a livery stable,
several homes on lots much smaller than George’s, and
a Baptist church. I could see several spires in the
distance that told me where the other churches were. I
was comforted by their presence. I hoped one of them
would be Holiness. Maybe Lulu would find new
friends there.
When we reached the center of town, we were
amazed by the number of city buildings and
businesses. There was a bank and a regular city hall, a
barber shop that also served as a dentist, a fire station,
a hotel, a restaurant and at least six stores.
I looked up and down the street but didn’t see
any sign that said, ‘jail,’ or, ‘sheriff.’A young woman
coming out of a general store stopped and smiled at us.
She looked friendly, so I asked her, “Excuse me, but
could you tell me where I can find the sheriff?”
With a big, pretty smile, the woman said, “You
must be Maude, and this must be Lulu. Aren’t you a
pretty little thing? I’m Sarah Graham. My husband is
George’s deputy. The whole town wants to welcome
you. Everyone likes George. We couldn’t believe he
finally found himself a wife. There’s going to be some
mighty disappointed young women in Kennett. I’ll
walk with you to the sheriff’s office. It’s right down
the street.”
She fell into step beside us and linked her arm in
mine. It gave me a really warm feeling to be welcomed
like that. She was pretty, and neat, and dressed in
clothes that didn’t look homemade. I told her about
wanting to fix up the house, and as we walked, Sarah
pointed out the best place to buy groceries, the store
that carried the most fabric, the doctor’s office and
other important locations. She put a little local color in
her information. The banker’s wife had consumption.
The mayor was thirty years older than his wife. The
town had hired a new schoolteacher for the coming
year because the last one got married.
When we got to the jail we found George’s horse
hitched up out front and George inside with his feet up
on the desk and his deputy pouring a cup of coffee out
of a big pot. George was wearing a vest that I hadn’t
seen before. It had his badge pinned to the front of it.
The badge was a circle with a star inside. The word,
“Sheriff,” circled the top arc and, “Kennett, Mo.”
circled the bottom. It made me feel a little proud when
I saw it.
“Look who’s here, George,” Sarah said. George
jumped up and introduced Lulu and me to his deputy,
Doug Graham.
Sarah and Doug said goodbye and went home to
have some dinner. George pointed me to a chair beside
the desk. “How did you get along with Mom this
morning?” he asked. He sounded half-afraid of the
answer.
“We’ll work things out,” I said. “It’s hard to have
two women under the same roof. We just need to find
out our own property lines is all. I looked around
inside the house. Would it be all right if I got what I
need to fix up our bedroom?”
“The bedroom? What’s wrong with it? What did
you want to do?”
“I’d like to put up some pretty paper and get
enough fabric to do up some curtains for the windows
and a new spread.”
“How much does all that cost?”
“I’ll go over to the store and find out.”
George looked doubtful and rubbed his chin.
“Let me know before you order anything. We aren’t
rich you know.”
I couldn’t help it, this rankled me. First, I had to
face down those growling dogs, and then I had to face
down Mrs. Foley, and now George was treating me
like a child. I’d spent the first twenty-six years of my
life doing as I was told. I wanted that to be in the past.
“I’m just finding out things as I go along, George. You
have a good-sized house and a lot of property. You own
your own horse when a lot of men don’t. I’m not one
to waste money at all. I spent my life so far stretching
every penny, and I’m not going to change that now.
I’m just trying to find out what I can do.”
He leaned over with his hands on the desk. “I’m
sorry, Maude. I didn’t mean that you couldn’t fix up
the place, just that we ought to plan it ahead of time.
Ma never cared much how things looked as long as
they were clean. Bessie’s the only one who liked to
make things pretty. Go ahead and find out how much
you need to spend. I get paid every month. If I can’t
afford it all at one time, you can do some things this
month and more things next month. Would that be all
right?”
I put my hand over one of his and he looked up
at me as if my touch surprised him. “That will be just
fine, George. I’ll check with some of the stores and see
what they have.”
I stopped in the doorway and turned back to face
him. “Mom Foley said that you don’t bring a noon
meal with you. Do you want to come home at noon or
do you like to eat at the restaurant?”