Authors: Nancy E. Turner
Just last week, Ernest said. I could see he was practically beaming with pride.
We filled the short span between the depot and my house with little details about who would be coming over and when, and the room arrangements, and then there was a great commotion getting all the parcels and bags onto the back porch.
Miss Felicity, I said, why don’t you go on in and make yourself at home, while Ernest helps me stow away the buggy?
Oh, that will be just swell with me, Sister Sarah, she said, and flounced into the kitchen door.
Ernest, I said, this is a real surprise. Mama will be amazed.
Won’t she though? I bet not one of you ever thought you’d see Ernest Prine married to the likes of her. A real lady. A very fancy, genteel sort of girl. Why, when I met Miss Felicity, I was just bowled over that she would even talk to me. Ain’t she something?
She sure is, I said. Where did you meet her?
Well, she is from back east. She is a city bred lady, not used to the west at all. I was so surprised when she agreed to marry me I could have hollered to the moon. She was just standing on a sidewalk in Taylor’s Bend, South Dakota, waiting for a friend, she said, and when I offered to help her across the street, she took my arm. Well, we started up a conversation, and never seemed to quit talking for two solid days. Then my leave was up, and I had to get back to the fort, but she said she would stay in town if I cared to see her again. Ain’t she fine?
Fine, I said, real fine. I’d like her not to call me Sister Sarah. It makes me sound like one of the nuns at the hospital, I told him.
Oh, sure enough. I’m sure she’s just excited, he said. She’s real special.
Ernest, I said, hand me that rail there. Well, Miss Felicity has got quite a special way about her. You just can’t help noticing her. I patted Brownie on the rump and closed the bottom half of the door to let some sun in the top and warm the place.
I know, he said. He was fairly glowing as we left the dark of the stable for the sunlight. The wind blew dust around the yard and the chickens in the coop fussed a little. Ernest leaned over real close. Sarah, I need you to do me a big favor. You see, Miss Felicity is so very fine and genteel, she’s not used to any kind of hard work or anything. She’s had servants all her life, and lived a quiet and refined way. So you’ve got to be very patient and mild around her. There can’t be any loud racket or busy-ness, or her nerves will get riled.
They will? I asked. Well, I’ll try not to be too loud when I fix dinner and bathe the children.
Oh, that’s right, he said, how are the children? Boy, I can’t wait to see ’em. You’ve got how many now? I bet they’re big. And smart. All in school, right? Do you think they can keep quiet while me and Felicity are here, for her nerves?
Oh, certainly, I said, feeling more than a little bit aggravated at all this fuss. I looked him square in the eyes and said, They are the quietest children ever born. Purely quiet.
And, you will try, won’t you, he said, whispering, you’ll try to act genteel in front of her?
Ernest, I was getting ready to scold him.
Oh, Sister, called Felicity from the porch. Sister, I’ve tried to make some tea and had a little accident. Can you come here? Quick?
There in the middle of my two-colored braided hardwood floor sat the teakettle, red and glowing hot, which it will only do if it had had no water in it, scorching a black hole into the wood. Felicity began to moan about having burned her fingers on the handle as I grabbed it up with the hem of my skirt around the handle and set it back on the stove.
Oh dear, oh dear, said Felicity, and she buckled up and cried.
Well, my first inclination was to slap her silly, but instead I said, Now, it’ll be all right. Jack will sand the floor and it will be good as new.
Well, Felicity snuffled like a little child, If you’re sure.
Before long I had made some tea and Anna left for home, so Suzy was with us, and Ernest made a big fuss over her and getting to know her new Auntie Felicity. Suzy couldn’t handle that mouthful of consonant sounds, so her version of it came out like An’ Flippy. I didn’t expect more of a baby, but Felicity kept on and on at her to say it right, until my little girl started to worry and I knew she was about to cry. I finally scooped up Suzy and gave her the little box of colored spools and some yarn to thread them on, and told Felicity that it was better not to push her too much at first, she will learn the new name later on.
Felicity lifts her eyebrows at me and nods, and then says, Oh, I see. She’s simple minded.
No, I said, she’s not in the least. Then I said I had to start dinner and went in the kitchen and made enough noise to rile her nerves good. Pea brained fuss and feathers like that calling my child simple. Oh, Ernest, what a surprise you have brought me!
As soon as we ate a little something, she wanted to see the whole house, and then settled in the parlor for a minute. I knew my wash water was hot so I went to the kitchen to clean up the dishes.
I could hear her in the parlor and she says to Celia, Fetch me my hatbox, girl.
Celia shrugged at her and said back, No anglais, señora.
Then Felicity hollers to Ernest, Tell your sister to tell this serving girl to fetch my box, honey dearest, please? Well, I knew Celia had been real helpful at dinner but nothing she did put in my mind that she was anything but a friend. She ate at the table with us, what did that woman think? I know Celia knew more “anglais” than she let on just now, also.
Here came Celia with tears in her eyes and I grabbed her quick and hugged her and told her not to mind. I wasn’t going to have my friends insulted. So I went towards the parlor to tell Felicity my friend is not a servant and my child is not a fool, and as I did, here she came again, saying, Sister Sarah, did I say something wrong? You mustn’t judge me too harsh, after all I’m so anxious to have everybody in my new family like me and I want us to be sisters. Let’s be friends, okay Darling?
Well, that’s fine, I said. And inside I knew that in all she said, the words “I’m sorry,” had yet to appear. All these misunderstandings have been my fault for judging too harshly. Yes, indeed. So I said to her, Would you help wash and dry these here dishes from our dinner? and held her out a towel.
She says back, Oh, how I’d love to, Darling! But I have a hand condition.
A hand condition? I said.
Yes, just can’t take soap. Simply can’t.
How sad for you, I said. How do you wash your hands?
Well, she says, my dear Ernest gives me this special kind he gets in the mail called Mrs. Reed’s. It’s the only one I can stand.
Sure enough? I said. Well, Ernest is a thoughtful fellow, isn’t he?
Yes, Ma’am, she says, and lifts up a bundle of flounces in her skirt, turns around on one heel, and puffs out of the kitchen like a cloud on a frying pan.
Later on, I hear her walking around on the wooden porch. I can tell where anyone is out there. She plops herself down on the wicker settee by the back door and is just lolling around when I hear Jack’s horse gallup into the yard. Pretty soon I hear the squeaking hinge on the horse shed, and Celia and I tipped over to the dining room window to watch what happened next. Well, here came Jack, stomping off dirt and dusting himself the way he always does as he comes up the back steps.
He stopped, startled, right in front of her and said, Hello. Hello, Miss.
Well, Miss Felicity perks right up and says, in a real affected, giggly voice, Oh, hello, sir. My, my, my. You have pure fluster-rated me, what with your handsomeness and all. Then up flies her hand like she did to me.
Jack has got his hat in his hands and is looking puzzled. I looked at Celia and made a face and she laughed. Jack stiffened up and took her fingers and bowed real formally over her hand, snapping his heels together, and said, Captain J. Elliot, at your service, Miss.
Well, that woman squealed and giggled like a fat child. Then she patted herself on the bosom and said, Oh, sir, you do honor me, why I might just faint with the, then she stopped quick and looked around, and stood up so she was so close to him her ruffles whipped against him in the breeze. Celia and I leaned away from the curtain so they couldn’t see us. Felicity’s voice got real quiet, but we could tell she was just talking up a storm, and I saw the look on Jack’s face go from puzzled to amused, to kind of wary. Then he made a little step towards the door, and she grinned like a cat and pushed her hand through his arm and got up even closer than before to come in the house with him.
La muestra, whispered Celia.
I looked at the place where Felicity’s big bosom was nudged up tight against Jack’s arm, and I said under my breath, pescadora.
Celia clapped her hand against her mouth and neither one of us was smiling now.
Well, I went to the back door to greet them, and Jack looked me in the eyes. His voice was happy sounding, but his face was plum curious and stunned. We have a new sister in law, he announced grandly, as if I hadn’t known yet.
Yes, indeed, I said. Felicity, maybe you’d like to wake up
your
husband and let him know Jack is home and we’ll be having supper quick? Then I turned to Celia and said in Mexican, She has still got her corset lying on my husband’s arm, and I smiled and nodded.
Celia said in English, I need some help to set a table, Felicité. Come here with me.
She let go of Jack as if it took all her strength to pull her hands off him, and I followed him quick up the stairs.
What do you make of that? Jack whispered to me as he was drying his face.
I think my brother has lost his mind, I told him.
He said, I’ll bet your Mama is going to have a conniption. He was grinning as he hung up the towel, and said, Well, he’s got a right to marry anyone he pleases. I seem to remember he isn’t the only Prine to lasso a mustang. Seems there was this younger sister with her cap set on a soldier.
I never set my cap for you. You just followed me around like a bird dog ’til I couldn’t do anything but marry you.
Oh, I see, he said. Is that the way you’re telling it?
Jack, I’m serious, I said. This is nothing but trouble for Ernest. It’s not like lassoing a mustang. I think Ernest has got a wildcat by the tail.
Then, that Jack Elliot burst into the most heathen laughing I ever heard, and shook the window laughing so I know everyone in the house heard. When he finally sputtered down he was red in the face and teary eyed.
Would you mind telling me what I said that was so funny, Captain Elliot?
Yes, he said, I would mind, but that was quite surely the most truthful way to describe, and then he started laughing again. Sarah, he said, enough of them. How are you feeling? Come here, he said, and kiss me and I will stop being a lowdown cuss and help you with supper, too. I have told them I want two weeks off. How’s this new baby doing? Is your back still hurting? Did you tell them all the doctor said you aren’t supposed to lift anything?
And so, in that frame of mind, we returned to the company, conspiring to be welcoming in spite of ourselves.
Well, it wasn’t long before Savannah and Albert and Mama and Mason arrived, and the house was a jumble of noise and confusion and happiness. Of course Mama was just stunned with Ernest’s new wife. She smiled, and looked at me and lifted her eyebrows, and I did the same back. We ate tamales and corn and tortillas and beans until we could burst, and Savannah’s girls had each made their first pies, and they brought so much with them for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner that we shared the twin’s good efforts tonight.
During supper, Jack looked at me across the table and the candles made us all kind of sparkly even with the gas lights burning. Once I caught him smiling at me during all the noise, and he winked like we shared a secret, and I smiled back. Then all our boys started talking loud and Celia’s and Savannah’s littlest both began to cry in the sudden loudness, and there was Jack, smiling through the candle flames, and he mouthed the words “I love you” across the commotion.
Pretty soon we had the children’s faces washed and set them in the parlor where Ernest said he would tell them a story. Felicity followed them in and sat herself in a chair while the ladies and Jack and Mason went in the kitchen and began cleaning dishes. Rudolfo went to the shed to tend everyone’s horses and said he would check for eggs in the chicken coop. Jack and Mason made some coffee and toted water pails here and there for us, and we washed and talked and dried and then began setting up for the big dinner tomorrow.
Mama asked why Felicity wasn’t in here with us and I told them all, very seriously, that she had a hand condition, and wanted to but couldn’t. Then I told them about the soap, and every last person in the room about split wide open trying not to laugh out loud. Rudolfo shelled pecans Albert had brought, and we heard about how Albert broke his arm trying to prune a dead branch in a tree.
Jack laughed and said, You know you aren’t supposed to saw off the same branch you’re standing on, Albert.
We all laughed and Albert said he was just reaching too far over his head and lost his footing, but we had to tease him about standing in a tree cutting branches anyway.
November 25, 1892
It is a beautiful day for Thanksgiving. This morning early I saw Savannah kneeling in the dining room, praying. Then she was done and she looked up, watching the sun rise over the Catalinas. It is real different for a sunrise, here, than out at the ranch. Everything was gold and pinks and glittery, and the mountains looked dark violet under the break of daylight. When I was sure she wouldn’t mind the intrusion, I went and sat with her, and we talked for a little while before going in to start the coffee.
Sarah, she says to me, I’d never complain and I’m sure grateful for your home, but is there any way at all we could change bedrooms with Ernest and Felicity?
Surely, I told her. But you all have the best room. Is there something wrong? Is there a drafty spot in there?
Oh, no, she said. It is warm and lovely. But I thought, well, it might be quieter. And the children are all up on that third floor with them.