Jan Karon - In the Company of Others

Some evictions going on east of us. When we think we have seen the last of this blasphemy the Enemy once again raises his head.

Holy Mother of God have Mercy on the Souls of all Your people in this Wild & Remote Region.

18 June 1862

Both Father Dominic & Caitlin advise me to do nothing. It is outside all convention that I refrain from avenging wound to my household. Balfour may forget the incident altogether, says Fr Dominic & C agrees.

As no possible good can come of confronting Balfour at this time, I am willing to receive counsel asked for.

Having disabused myself of the notion to put a bullet in Balfour- & confessed this impulse to Fr Dominic-I now harbor the continual image of slapping his face so violently as to send him reeling-in this waking dream, I have seen the snot & blood issue from his nose like a shot. He stumbles backward & falls onto the stone floor of the entrance to his stables thereby cracking his skull- & is dead within minutes. I am haunted by the face of his daughter appearing at the doorway as this murderous incident occurs.

Such grusome images so interfere with my Supplications that I am continually pleading God’s forgiveness. Seventy times seven is a hard lesson to be learned.

I seldom write here of those lost to Death under my care, for C & I have done all in our might to save them.

God have mercy on the soul of Connor Gleason age 46 without kith or kin to mourn his passing.

1 July

Blistering heat, no rain in near two weeks

I had begun to believe we were well rid of him but he came again today-the snake in the Garden. He was all hail fellow well met & I decided to leave it at that. There has been rumor of fever outbreak in cabins some distance from here though I have seen no vestige of it in this Region. This rumor breaks out on occasion like a case of measles. Balfour made it clear to me that he wanted no contagion brought on land contiguous to his. As I do not consider the fever an actual threat, I agreed that I would not treat patients here with any true sign of yellow fever.

As I looked at him on his unfortunate mount, I confess I was murdering him with my very eyes. He went away without getting down & without the usual foul jollity with our men. Twas as if he knew the violent cast of my thoughts & was in a scramble to be gone.

May God give us faith & strength to finish the race here.

4 August

Warm, humid, rain in afternoon

In gratitude for the completion of the house & stables & in honor of the coming Feast Day of the Blessed Virgin I sent funds to Fr Dominic for the repair of the Church roof & other pressing needs. I am greatly relieved to thus thank Almighty God for the new home to which we have moved these last days. Twill be comfortable indeed if we can improve the kitchen firebox which smokes the plaster far along the stair hall. A great dither for the women.

Following Mass on Thursday 14, Fr Dominic to come and give us a proper blessing. All neighbors hereabout invited to share in a Feast. We shall have a crowd numbering that of the Roman legions.

C scoured the countryside & found five able women to man the cooking with herself & Aoife-Keegan has got us a labor force to roast the pig, the sheep & goats. Irish whiskey & barrels of Guinness (Keegan and I in disagreement about # of barrels) will be offered & that’s the end of it. Although I am loth to do it given their recent behavior, have sent word to the workmen to attend with their wives & children. Danny Moore’s family eager to come. Twould be wrong to keep them away but have warned him that the men will not suffer him kindly. The incident he caused has taught him a sobering lesson. He came to me hat in hand, proposing to play the Fiddle for the occasion & offering further entertainment by his sisters who sing the old songs in harmony. I am reminded that such as soothes the savage breast may be balm to the recent fury.

Keegan & I abroad these last weeks checking the quality of livestock & fowl raised for us for this occasion. I look at a fat ewe to be roasted & it is coughing. Keegan, I say, tell Paddy O’Reilly we will not pay for his ewe, it is coughing like a man. That’s what sheep do, he says in his dry way-they cough.

He thinks I have been ruined by American living.

Keegan teaches me how to buy a pig. I tell him I do not need to know how to buy a pig as he will buy any pigs in future. He says it is good to know what to look for in man or beast.

He recommends the eyes be animated & the ears upright. He contends the neck must be thick & deep with a ‘graceful arch.’ Thin skin is wanted in a ‘lively’ shade of pink. The two raised for us meet these high standards & I regret the eating of them rather than the breeding-Padraig McFee will keep one of them on til frost & cure its meat for our table. In any case, I walk away feeling we have got our money’s worth from McFee.

Have had the notion of transplanting wild Lilies to the Mass Rock-I saw the scene vividly in a dream & smelled their scent.

I am at last able to keep this Journal well hid-each evening when I have done with scribbling it is put away where no one however clever might find it. I could not keep it so private at the Cabin.

Aoife stitching herself a Frock these last evenings. I see she is not wearing the shoes made upon her father’s last, as I hoped she might in our new surroundings. She vows she prefers the bare feet in nearly all wether.

She has somehow wormed her milking stool into the parlor where she sits with her cloth and needle. In dying light from the west window I observe her face-it is unusually pensive & I try to imagine her thoughts-thoughts perhaps of a suitor? or some jollity she shared with her sisters on their monthly visit? Perhaps she imagines herself in this new gown the color of ripe peaches mulled with cream- & conceives the way the lads will catch their breath in their throats & speak too loudly among themselves when she passes.

He raised his head and listened for a moment to Cynthia’s breathing, and the rattle of beech leaves beyond the window. In the deep shadow of their room were gleaming sheets of thick paper, heavy with images. She had stood the watercolors on the chest of drawers and leaned them against the wall to dry. In the afternoon, he’d twice pulled off the road for her to sketch the landscape-but she asked to go back to the horse chestnut, and the only subject making it to the top of the chest was the loaf-shaped outcrop of Beann Gulban.

9 August

Very warm day; full moon-war news from America deeply agitating

Keegan not himself these last weeks-whistling one minute & the next silent & gaping as if struck by a vision of The Blessed Virgin herself.

C suspects he is in love. I cannot imagine

Keegan in love.

C has written out the list of dishes to be served & I transcribe them here for my own good pleasure when in ould age I sit by the hearth enjoying the hospitality of beard & pipe. I shall be astonished to read of the great strength with which God equipped us to do all that has been wrought at Cathair Mohr.

I have asked for Roast Swan which many find delicious, but C will have none of it-I will not devour beauty, she says, twill bring doom upon us. Aye, Keegan says, siding with her, we have doom enough without looking for it. I remind them both that all is beautiful, even the fine pig we’ll be roasting, but I have lost this dubious battle.

She reminds me that since we arrived from Philadelphia well over two years past we have delivered forty-seven Infants into this sere & indifferent world, thirty of whom survive & flourish & will likely be among us at the Feast. Twill be a proper blessing to hear the laughter of children about the place.

Twenty roast Geese

Twenty roast Hens stuffed

One hundred Hens Eggs boiled hard