Nevada Barr - Bittersweet

Karen took another stick of the wedding candy Imogene had bought for Sarah. “Me and Earl are engaged,” she confided.

Sarah snorted.

“Hush, Sarah,” Imogene said quietly and, chastened, Sarah dropped back half a step as the three of them walked on. Imogene stole glances at Karen, noticing the thickened waist, the high color, the glow of her skin even through the accumulated layers of dirt. Karen was pregnant. Imogene’s heart went out to the girl and she unconsciously touched the jade ring she had taken from Mary Beth’s hand. “Karen,” she began delicately, “it has been a while since you were a student of mine, but if-for any reason-you need someone to talk to-”

“Why would I need to talk to somebody?” Karen interrupted suspiciously.

“Sometimes people need a friend,” Imogene replied. “Just someone to talk with.”

Karen’s eyes narrowed and her hand strayed to her swelling belly.

“For any reason, Karen. Please come.” Imogene laid a hand gently on the girl’s arm.

Karen recoiled at the knowledge she read in the schoolteacher’s eyes. “You keep your mouth shut!” she hissed. “You better keep quiet. No matter what I done, it’s better than what you’re doing. You and Sarah make me sick. Since you come, she’s been mooning around you and now you’re buying Sarah ribbons. Like an old dog suckin’ around the chicken coop ’cause no man’ll look at you.”

Imogene slapped her. The print of her hand stayed white on the girl’s face, then filled with blood until it burned red on the pale cheek. Sarah sucked in her breath, her hand over her mouth. For a moment they stared at one another, their faces frozen; then, with the suddenness of a frightened rabbit, Karen turned and ran. Imogene called after her, but she didn’t stop or look back.

Back at the schoolmistress’s house, Imogene brushed Sarah’s long hair and divided it into two parts. When she had plaited the ribbons into the braids, she wound them into a crown around Sarah’s head. The ends of the ribbons fluttered prettily down behind the girl’s right ear. Both made an attempt to be gay.

Imogene looked out the open door as she tied the last bow. “We’re just in time. Your mother and Mr. Ebbitt are here. Run along and show them your ribbons.”

Sarah slipped into the bedroom to put away the brush and the looking glass. “Thank you for the ribbons,” she said. “They’re the nicest present I’ve ever gotten. Almost,” she amended, and smiled at the beautifully framed miniature of Imogene she’d done with the water colors-the schoolteacher’s first gift to her. It was hung in the place of honor over the mantel.

Imogene came to the little door. “You are welcome.” She ducked through and stood behind Sarah, looking over the girl’s head at her image in the mirror. The braids made a soft yellow circlet shot with gold and blue. With the hair swept off her cheeks and temples, Sarah’s hazel eyes dominated her face, and her small mouth and pointed chin lent her an elfin look. Imogene laid her hand gently on the coiffed hair. “Better go now. Sam’s waiting.” She walked with Sarah to the carryall.

“Get a move on, Sare. Be milking time before we get back, as it is.” Sam nodded curtly to Imogene. “Welcome back, Miss Grelznik.”

Sarah stopped short. “My candy!”

“Well, go get it, goose,” Imogene laughed. “It’s on the kitchen table.” Sarah ran back to the house. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Tolstonadge.”

Mam smiled and fanned herself. “Hope the heat hasn’t made you sorry you’re back. Must have been cooler back in Philadelphia. That’s by the ocean, ain’t it?”

“Not much cooler, and I’m glad to be home.”

Mrs. Tolstonadge leaned forward to look past Sam at Imogene. Her brow creased sympathetically. “Why, you’re wearing mourning!”

Imogene’s throat tightened when she heard the kind words, and she nodded. Tears started in her eyes. “A very dear friend, a student of mine, died in childbirth. She was such a little thing. She looked very like Sarah Mary.”

Sarah came out of the house with her bag of candy as Mam started to speak. Imogene waved her to silence and smiled shakily. When she turned to Sarah, her eyes were dry.

“Mam, Imogene bought me ribbons.” She turned a pretty circle for her mother; then, catching Sam Ebbitt’s dark eye, she stopped.

“Get on in, Sare,” Mam said gently. “Sam’s got chores to get back to, and so do we.”

Imogene watched the wagon roll away, the setting sun dyeing the dust orange in its wake, and shuddered. “Someone’s trod on my grave,” she murmured, and laughed to cheer herself.

Several weeks later, Earl Beard left town abruptly. Shortly thereafter, a piece of slate was hurled through the window of the schoolhouse, the words I’ll get you for telling scrawled on it in chalk. Imogene recognized Karen’s handwriting, but pitied the girl and, paying for the new window herself, said nothing.

THAT AUTUMN WAS A LANDMARK TIME FOR THE GOSSIPS OF CALLIOPE. The little church had two weddings in as many weeks. The first was the marriage of Karen Cogswell to Earl’s brother, Clay. Judith laced her daughter tight in a whalebone corset, but Karen’s pregnancy still showed. Halfway up the aisle, the bride, wild-eyed and sweating, clamped her hand over her mouth and bolted for the side door. Her father held her veil out of the dirt while she vomited. “Ought to have known better than to have a morning wedding,” someone grumbled.

Clay alone, of all the wedding party, was happy. His broad face was radiant as he took Karen’s hand from her father’s and closed it reverently in his.

The second wedding was that of Sarah Tolstonadge and Sam Ebbitt.

They were married September 29, 1874, and with a box of clothing and two dozen cookies tied up in a borrowed cloth, Sarah moved out of the little bedroom she had shared with her sisters for as long as she could remember.

The Ebbitt house was a two-story log building. The second story, larger than the first, jutted out over the squat lower rooms, throwing the few windows into deep shade. Sam had lived alone in the house for twenty-six years. No homely appointments warmed it; no curtains hung at the windows, no rugs brightened the dark floors, no cloths made the plain tables and heavy chairs less dreary. Twenty-six years of dust hardened in corners and crevices, twenty-six years of flyspecks darkened the window glass, and twenty-six years of dinners were burnt to the stove. A new wire brush and a new store-bought broom were in the pantry; Sarah had begun married life.

She and Sam quickly settled into the routine their days were to follow. Sam altered his life very little; he ate and he worked, and in the evenings he read from his Bible or sat silent by the living room stove. Sarah cooked and cleaned and lay still in the bed nights when Sam climbed on top of her. There was plenty to eat, and for the first time in Sarah’s life, there was money for sturdy shoes that fit, and warm woolen dresses for winter.

December passed cold and dry, the new year blowing in on icy rains that turned the barnyard into a mire. Arms full of kindling, Sarah slogged back from the woodshed, eyes wide against the night. The dog growled, lunging at her in the darkness, straining at his chain. Sarah ran quickly by. Balancing the wood against her hip, she wrestled with the kitchen door latch. The cold metal gave grudgingly and she backed in and dumped the kindling into the woodbox. It still looked pathetically empty. Pulling out a few sticks, she opened the maw of the stove. Wind caught in the chimney and puffed a cloud of sparks out the open door. Emitting a shriek, she dropped the wood and leaped back, batting at the burning embers on her apron and skirts. Only one had burned the fabric and it was scarcely noticeable.