Authors: Nancy E. Turner
August 4, 1882
At last, we have all had a night’s sleep, the baby only woke two times. Mama said soon enough he’ll sleep the night through, and we’ll all rest.
This morning I told my family why we haven’t seen Jimmy all week, as he has been giving me plenty of space to think about something big. They seemed mighty surprised, all except Albert, who looked at me kind of vexed. Then I put my rifle under my arm and called Toobuddy, and went for a slow walk down to Jimmy’s place to have a talk with him.
Jimmy is a good man, and I’ve seen him grow up and I know he is not too good looking, but he is real clever, just look at that indoor running water spigot. He knows horses, and is making a good living already. And I see how Savannah and Albert are like one person, kind hearted always to each other’s feelings, and how he fusses over her and cares for her every little whim like she was a treasure to him.
And then I thought about that night we spent afraid of that Moses Smith fellow. And how when he saw Smith’s gun, Jimmy jumped in front of me. And I knew my answer.
He was cutting wood behind the tiny house. When I saw him, he had his shirt off and was measuring and making such a racket he didn’t see me coming. So I stood there, quiet, until Toobuddy made a whimper and Jimmy turned around.
You came back, was all he said. Like that alone was surprise enough. Then suddenly he grabbed his shirt off a stack of fresh pine lumber and started wiping sweat and trying to put it on at the same time. It made a little ripping sound as I walked up to him.
So I said, Jimmy, be careful there. You know I hate to mend buttonholes.
August 9, 1882
I feel like I have turned into another person, like someone else walks around in my shoes, and I don’t know who I was before, nor who I am now. But the truth is, I am going to become Mrs. James Eldon Reed sometime in October, and Jimmy has written to Tucson for word of when there will be a judge available or a preacher in town.
That afternoon at Jimmy’s house there was no one around, and he gave me my first kiss. He was really edgy about doing it, but I didn’t budge. It was plain and simple, and didn’t make me all crazy feeling like that other one I got from that ornery soldier. Since we’re engaged, it is all right. I’m sure Captain Elliot’s kiss made me feel strange because he was not being a gentleman. I wanted to tell Jimmy to kiss me some more, but I remembered how pure I’m supposed to be, and although I have given up hope of being too pious, I will have to wait for more kisses until later.
I wrote Ernest about the news and about baby Clover being born, and he has written back already, in a hurry mostly because they are sending him to the Dakotas to join in the Indian wars there, which was just what I was afraid of. Besides, there is plenty of Indian trouble here, but the paper says the Governor is not letting the Army help with outlaws, only Indians. They have named the renegade Apaches outlaws, so they say there is not really a Indian war here to fight. That is all pretty stupid to me, as trouble is trouble no matter what name you tag on it, but the Army is chock full of rules, Ernest says, some of them with no sense attached.
He said thank you to me for writing Captain Elliot, as the Captain grinned for a week and was in an amazingly good humor after hearing from me last time. In my head I think he should have got his eyes scalded from reading what I wrote, but there is no explaining that Captain Elliot to anyone. Then Ernest told that man that I was marrying Jimmy Reed, and so there is a little folded up paper inside Ernest’s letter from the Captain to me.
I figured it might be a kind note of congratulations, which The Happy Bride says I will get many of that sort from friends and acquaintances, but it says only this:
Dear Miss Prine, I sincerely regret to inform you that The Duchess of Warwick and Her Sorrows By the Sea is no longer for sale.—Fondly, Captain John Edward Harrison Elliot, U.S. Army, 10th Cav
.
Low down dirty ornery rotten skunk of a cussed mule-headed soldier! What’s he want with my book anyway? And what kind of a way is that to write a congratulations? I am so mad I could walk clear to that fort and take him on single handed.
August 16, 1882
Jimmy is building us a house, and every day I walk over of an evening and listen to him tell about it. He asks me where to put this and that, and do I like a porch all the way around, foursquare, like he does. It is too big, I think, but he said, Well, maybe there will be children to fill it.
He has gotten done with most of the heaviest parts with the help of my brothers and Mr. Maldonado. The Maldonados are always there to help you and are good friends. Mrs. Maldonado showed me how to cut ocotillo sticks for a fence without getting cut to ribbons by tying up pieces with a string so when it is cut it snaps away from you.
Tomorrow, Mama and Jimmy are going to Tucson with the whole Maldonado family, and they will not let me go no matter what I say. Albert is to check on Jimmy’s horses for horse thieves, but I have to stay home.
When I got peeved, they all accused me of being touchy and sulking. Let them go, I say. It is hotter in Tucson than here, and heaven knows it is hot enough here to bake bread without an oven. There is no reason I cannot go, they are just being selfish.
Savannah said Stay here and let’s make a new batch of lye soap, she has a special recipe that is real fine. So in this wretched heat I am going to go outside and start a big fire and boil a kettle of fat and ashes. This will be hotter than Tucson, and a sight less fun than traveling with all of them and singing songs on the way and such. I wish the Lord would just knock me over with kindness and goodness and simple purity, because I don’t seem to be getting the knack of it on my own.
August 20, 1882
There is a Presbyterian preacher in Tucson who will come out to marry us the third week of October, and Jimmy has arranged it. I don’t know what a Presbyterian is, and I told him couldn’t he get the Methodist preacher to come, and why don’t we go to the church for it? but Jimmy didn’t answer. It was what he has arranged, and that’s that.
Then I figured out the reason myself is that it would take at least two days to go to town to wed, and all would want to be there, and he will not leave his horses all that time in this wilderness.
He has made a huge foursquare porch, roofed all around with the biggest roof I have ever seen. Jimmy said it is exactly like the MacIntoshes’, and they had a good house. The first room he had with the cistern will be the kitchen, and he has built better shelves and a cooking table, and made me stand and pretend I was kneading dough to get the height just right for me. The porch is much bigger than the house, he said, because when we want to add a room, all we have to do is put up walls. The roof is suspended by the posts all around, and will cover space for four or five more rooms easily.
He made steps up to the front porch, seven real wide, shallow ones. When I asked him why so many small steps, when four would have done the job, he said, Well, children have short legs, and he grinned. Luckily I was standing really close to him when he said it, because the idea of it made him want to kiss me again and I was glad to be handy.
August 23, 1882
I have started sewing, making new things for my new life. I have to get busy and copy over all Mama’s receipts for baking and cooking. She says some are Jimmy’s favorites. And I have to copy down my patterns so I am using my newspapers glued together. Harland said that is sissy stuff until I said, Well, it takes a skillful artist to make a precise drawing, then he got interested and even fussed at me for not gluing the papers straight enough for precise work.
Albert shook his head and said, Sarah you read too many books and say words like you are putting on airs to us. Then Savannah told him to hush he would wake the baby.
Seems to me they are not happy about something and touchy this morning, but I have things to do, so they will have to mend their own fence today.
August 30, 1882
When I went to see how the house is coming Jimmy wouldn’t let me inside because he said the varnish gas is still bad. There are windows in every wall, and real glass in all of them, with shutters to pull up when it storms to keep out the gale. He is changed a little, kind of gruff today, just real busy trying to finish the house, I suppose.
There has been a cooler spell, and although we know summer is not over, the heat is gentle today and things are growing everywhere, not looking so scorched as they did in June. I am making a rag rug with scraps the Maldonados gave me from all their children’s old worn out clothes. I told them what a happy rug it would be as it carries all the children’s laughter with it, and Mrs. Maldonado cried and hugged me and made me eat two huge tamales.
I wrote another letter to Captain Elliot, this time much nicer and more sweet, trying to convince him that I do want that book back but we should come to a reasonable agreement about the payment. I suppose I could take Terry or Dan back to him, but I’d rather not.
September 12, 1882
Jimmy is building furniture. It is rugged and not refined, but solid and will last a long time. Meanwhile, I am piecing a quilt, making it really big for us both, and I have gotten started on a tick mattress that will fit inside the bed frame Jimmy has built. When we get a roost full of chickens I plan to start saving feathers to make a bed.
There has been shooting and a stage coach robbing. Some lawmen and a posse are after them and stopped here to water up. They said there is a cave nearby where the outlaws are hiding, and to keep our doors locked and our stock penned. Well, we don’t own a lock, but we know what to do with horse thieves.
My letter to Captain Elliot came back from the fort, unopened. It was found in the dirt where the stage coach robbery had been, along with several others. I will send it again.
Jimmy said I should forget it, it is just a stupid book, but it is not, and I can’t.
October 2, 1882
I received a letter today from a Major I. A. Thomas at Fort Huachuca, with my letter enclosed. It seems Captain Elliot’s enlistment was up, and he retired from the Army, saying he was going home to Texas to be a Texas Ranger and has taken up residence near Austin.
Major Thomas then wrote:
it is sometimes wiser to let these things be, and not to pursue a lost cause
. He surely couldn’t know what I want from that man is to pay to have my book returned. I wonder if he thinks the letters I have written were friendly in nature and not business? If so, then the Army is surely made up of a mighty foolish lot of men, with a few exceptions like Ernest.
October 9, 1882
Our wedding is going to be held on our own front porch, on the side away from the sun which has no rooms yet and so is large enough for many people to be in the shade. It is hot again, and I have been at work for two days on a new dress. Jimmy went to town and came home with some handsome yardgoods for me in dark blue.
Savannah has made a stitched and cut out collar that looks almost like lace, and gave it to me today, and it will look wonderful on the dress. This will be my wedding dress, so I am taking my time. I am making rolled trim cords of the scraps of light blue from my other town dress, and tucking that in the edges of seams, and two rows of tiny buttons down the front. It is the grandest dress I have ever seen, and will have a sweeping gather in the back with a bow on it like the Sears and Roebuck dress, but I will not have a shaper to wear it with. Then I am making two skirts and blouses, both of which can be let out later if needed for babies.
If anyone had asked me when we were struggling on the road to San Angelo would I be settling down next year with Jimmy Reed and a herd and a big house of my own, I would have plum laughed my head off.
Albert has built a big stone wall around their well, and rigged a block and tackle up to run the bucket up and down with. Jimmy asked him about it and Albert was rude to him, and I don’t know why.
But Jimmy said, Aw, it’s just old Albert’s way of saying he doesn’t want to lose his little sister. Maybe that is why he is so cross lately, he can hardly sit across the table from me.
I asked Mama, isn’t there anything else about marriage I need to know? I can make a cake, and butcher a hog or chickens, and plant a garden, and drive a team. But it seems like there is something she should be saying about other things about men.
Mama just looked off at the hills, and said, Be sure to bathe regular and make him, too, if you can. And pray every day.
I went to find Savannah, but she was so busy cooking and tending the baby that it didn’t seem like I could get a word in edgewise. Every time I started to talk, she would say, Pass me that flour bowl, would you Sarah? or Take this for me? Hand me that, please, no the other one. There’s the baby fussing, just a minute Sarah, would you set that down there? until I just gave up. I never have seen her in such a stir, as if she was more stirred up inside than out. There are lots of questions I want to ask about marriage, but no one to ask them, so I will have to be patient and wait and wonder on my own.
October 20, 1882
Yesterday was our wedding day. In the morning, Jimmy told me to come see the inside at last. Lo and behold, he has bought me a wedding present, and there in the kitchen is the biggest finest stove, all white with steel handles and lifters coiled up so they don’t get too hot to touch, and hanging on a rack by little rings are three iron skillets and four big pots, in the corner is a big washtub, and standing over it is a real wringer set up for washing clothes better than with a rub board alone. There are shelves on the walls, a big table, and a line of knives stuck in little slots at the edge of it. These are things he bought when they all made me stay at home that time, he said, real proud of himself for hiding them all this time.
Never in my life did I expect to see such a fine kitchen, much less have it be mine. I had to touch everything and lift everything, and feel it all, and look inside the stove from every little door and opening. The other pot belly stove is in the sitting room, for warmth in there. This is a rich house, I said, and it makes me want to cook something. It also made me want to kiss him some, but I didn’t say that, I just smiled.