Трейси Шевалье - At the Edge of the Orchard

I will keep hoping to hear from you, though it is hard. I am still saving my money ($7.31 now!) and can pack and leave the moment I get your letter.

I am your sister

Martha

Goodenough Farm

Black Swamp

Near Perrysburg

Ohio

March 11, 1855

Fort Leavenworth

Near the Missouri River

Missouri Territory

Dear Robert,

It has been almost 8 years since I received a letter from you. I do not know where you are, or if you are alive. All of the letters I sent to Fort Leavenworth were returned to me in one bundle. It made me cry to get them back. But I wanted you to know where I am, so I am writing anyway, because maybe you will come back one day to the fort, and if so, this letter will be there for you.

I am back living on the farm with Caleb. Mrs. Day died of a tumor last summer, and after that it was difficult living with Mr. Day. I am sorry to say that I was going to have a child, though it came much too early and was dead. After that I hoped Mr. Day would leave me be, but it became clear he intended to be unkind again, and so I had no choice but to come back home.

It has been many years since I lived here. The house is drafty and very dirty, for Caleb lives like an animal. I am trying to clean it. I am going to dig the old garden too, and I even pruned the apple trees to see if I can get them to produce better. I remember what Pa taught you, because I was listening too. I am looking forward to seeing the blossoms in May. Two of the Golden Pippin trees are still alive and seem to be all right. I look forward to that sweet fruit.

It feels better to write, even if you never see this letter. I hope beyond hope that somewhere out in the world it reaches you yet.

I am your sister

Martha

Water Street Guest House

Water Street

New York City

New York

February 2, 1856

Mrs. Bienenstock’s Guest House

Montgomery and California Streets

San Francisco

California

Dear Robert,

I have wanted to write to you since November but I have not had a moment to do so until now. I am in New York City, waiting for the river to unfreeze so that I can get on a steamship that will take me to you. For at last I know where you are! I am sending this letter in case it arrives before I do to let you know that I am coming.

There are many things I would like to tell you but they can wait until I see you in California. I will just say that these past months have been a trial almost beyond what a Goodenough can bear. But I am still alive. And you are alive too. I have been able to read all of your letters, for Caleb had them. It was strange that he kept them, though he could not even read and he had no feeling for the family. I was living back at the farm with him after Mrs. Day’s death and Mr. Day was unkind. Caleb was also unkind, but he is family and I had nowhere else to go. Of course you do not know: Sal and Nathan are both long dead.

One day in November when I was at the general store, Mr. Malone said there was a letter for me. It turned out to be the last letter I sent to you in Fort Leavenworth, returned to me. I was so disappointed I shed a tear or two right there. Then Mr. Malone said something about a letter for the Goodenoughs some months back, and that he had given it to Caleb. When I got back to the farm I asked Caleb, who denied it, but when he was passed out-for he has taken to applejack same as Ma-I searched and finally found that letter, and all of your letters, under a loose stone in the chimney. I was so angry that Caleb had kept them from me all these years that I did something foolish-I woke him up and shouted at him. I know I should have “let sleeping dogs lie,” but I was so angry I couldn’t help it. When Caleb realized I’d found the letters he got mad too and was unkind. That made me do something else foolish, and then I had to leave the Black Swamp in a hurry.

I walked to Toledo, where I thought I would try to get a stage going west. I would just keep going west, changing stages wherever I could, to get to California. But in Toledo a man who had been out to California himself for the gold explained to me about America, how it is huge with many long rolling plains and a big mountain range in the middle. And he told me there weren’t stages much past Chicago, but wagons across all those plains and mountains, and that I would be better off going by water: Lake Erie, then the canal to New York City, and finally a ship that will go all the way around South America to San Francisco. He drew a map for me so that I would understand where I was going. It seemed strange to go east and south in order to go west, but my life has been strange for so long that I knew I had to do it.

It has been frightening because I have never been out of the Black Swamp since I was a little girl, but at times it has been exciting, and for the most part people have been helpful. Now I am waiting for the ship that will take me to California. It is a very long journey but I trust in God to bring me safely to you. For a while there in the Black Swamp I lost sight of Him, but now I have faith again.

I am always your sister

Martha

MARTHA COULD NOT STOP holding on to Robert. His sister kept her hand on his arm all the while they sat under the Orphans sequoias and he read the packet of letters she handed to him. He did not really want to read them-his reading was slow even when he wasn’t distracted-but Martha insisted. “They explain better than I can now what happened to me, when it happened,” she said. “Besides, it tickles me to see you read them at last.”

“But how?” he kept repeating even after he’d skimmed the letters, not fully taking them in. “How did you find me?” He’d known-or had thought he’d known-exactly where she was, but he’d never imagined his sister could find him in such a vast country.

“It wasn’t so hard,” she explained patiently. “I had the address of Mrs. Bienenstock’s boardinghouse from your letter, so I knew where I was aiming for. There are two ways you can do it: overland or by sea. It was winter and I didn’t want to travel through all that snow, so I knew I’d have to go by sea. So I got up to Lake Erie and took a boat over to Buffalo, then got a barge along the Erie Canal to New York. I was lucky, ’cause it wasn’t cold enough yet to freeze the canal, otherwise I would’ve been stuck in Buffalo all winter waiting for the thaw.”

“You went east?”

“Yes, first I had to go east so I could then go west to find you. I know it is strange,” she added as Robert shook his head, “but sometimes that’s what you have to do-go back to go forward. Then I went by ship all the way around South America and up again to San Francisco. It took six months.” Martha tucked stray hairs behind her ears, pulling out her bonnet to reach them; Robert recognized the gesture from childhood and it almost made him cry. She seemed so fragile, and yet she spoke confidently of America and how to navigate its tricky expanse.

“When did you leave Ohio?”

“Middle of November. I had to wait in New York City for some weeks ’cause I was ill with-” Martha gestured at her belly. “Once I was better I got on a ship, but it all took such a long time. You know I even wrote to you from New York, but the letter ended up on the same ship as me! It arrived at Mrs. Bienenstock’s just an hour after I did.”