The Ballad of Lucy Whipple (10 page)

"And fresh peas!" added another.

"And chocolate cake," I shouted, deliberately avoiding Mama's disapproving eyes. If the prayer meeting erupted into rowdiness and merriment, Brother Clyde might still be toting me back east.

Suddenly a shot rang out and silence fell. Brother Claymore stood with his pistol smoking in his hand. "I trust I have your attention now." He sure did. "Remember, brothers, Hell is never full. Satan always has a place for you," and suddenly the big man began to cry and groan and wail. "I feel the fires, the fires of Hell, licking at my feet!" His great voice sang out like the cathedral bells the Hunchback rang as he died for love of Esmeralda. In spite of myself I was moved.

First the miners sat in embarrassed silence, and then some people began to cry and wail along with him. Then we all were shouting and singing regardless of what we believed or did not believe. While some sang "Amazing Grace" or "Hail, Columbia," others bellowed "Buffalo Gals," "Turkey in the Straw," and "From Greenland's Icy Mountains." Pleased at the cacophony, for I was sure it meant the prayer meeting was falling apart, I sang "Home, Sweet Home" with all the fervor I could muster.

Then the Gent took his fiddle and Rusty his mouth harp. As they played, we sang to the tune of "Oh Susanna":

"Oh California,
That's the place for me.
I'm off to Sacramento
With my washbowl on my knee."

Everyone sang especially loud when they got to the word "California," except for me. I sang "Massachusetts" instead, just as loud as I could.

Brother Claymore made ready to pass his hat, saying: "All those who wish to lie down in everlasting darkness may leave; the rest stay and be counted," but I didn't feel threatened. You had to know that Brother Claymore's God would never really send anyone to Hell. He might pinch your cheek or give you a licking for something real bad, but eternal damnation? Never.

Except for Amos Frogge, the congregation slipped away, some to the card parlor, some to a whiskey bottle, others to the back of the saloon, where a number of fights were already starting, and us into the cool spring evening, fragrant with the smell of pines and so quiet after the frenzy inside.

When Brother Clyde came back to the boarding house, I asked, "Are you a shepherd with sheep now, Brother Clyde?"

"One sheep, Miss Lucy. Brother Amos has chosen the path of righteousness."

"Only one?" I felt almost guilty at my pleasure in his failure. "Then I reckon you'll be leaving here soon for the old states."

"Not hardly Miss Lucy! Praise the Lord, this is my beginning. A soul saved is a soul saved. Thank you, Jesus!" And he fell to his knees right there and started talking to God.

Doomed. I stayed up late, writing to Gram and Grampop by the light of a candle stub, the sound of Brother Clyde praying soft on the air.

Another plan of mine to get out of Lucky Diggins has come to nothing. Maybe I should have prayed at the meeting for God to help me, but I was so busy trying to sink Brother Clyde that I didn't even think of it.

Everyone else had such a good time singing, as if they all had a home in Lucky Diggins and they were content. Brother Clyde said he was a stranger in a strange land, but I think it is me. There is no place for me here. If I cannot come home to you, I will just wither away into dust and let the wind blow me back to Massachusetts.

I sighed and burned the letter in the candle flame. No use vexing Gram and Grampop. That night I fell asleep restless with sadness and unnamed longings. I had a dream. My pa was not dead. He was lost in the mountains of California. I woke up with my face wet.

S
UMMER
1851

In which I celebrate Independence Day

Butte never completely recovered from his near drowning, as if the river water had done something to his innards. He didn't go back to work on the river but mostly slept or sat in the sun and tried to swallow all that Mama was pushing him to eat. To get away from her broths and tonics, he took over the hunting, sitting on the stump and shooting those rabbits and squirrels foolish enough to invade Prairie's garden. Since he was a much more willing hunter than I, and a better shot, we had more meat that summer and fewer suppers of that tough and stringy beef from the south we called sheet-iron steaks. But things were tight without Butte's wages, and in my pickle crock there were still more cobwebs than gold.

Come July, Lucky Diggins prepared to celebrate the first Independence Day for the new state of California. There were to be fireworks, a picnic, music, speeches, and me, my mind on Massachusetts, selling pies.

July fourth dawned hot enough to fry an egg on a bald man's head, if there had been an egg to spare. Butte was poorly, coughing and spitting and sitting with one hand to his chest, so he stayed at home with Mama. Prairie, Sierra, and I went down to the river, where some canvas awnings were set up. Everyone in town was there, as well as those miners from farther off who thought celebrating this day more important than striking it rich. The Gent fiddled and Mr. Scatter played the squeezebox and Milly from the saloon sang "The Boy I Left Behind Me" and "Maryland, My Maryland" until we all were heartily sick of them. Belle Scatter and her lawyer beau said they'd be happy to watch Prairie and Sierra until dark, "for practice," Belle said, and giggled.

So I found a shady tree, spread a cloth, arranged my pies on it, and sat back to make my fortune. I had been sitting quite a while, fanning flies away and listening to the sounds of celebration—singing, fighting, gunshots, and the imperious voice of Prairie organizing the miners into a game of Ant'ny Over—when Bernard Freeman came by. He bought a slice of pie and said he thought he'd spend the day up on Ranger Creek: "Best I get out of town before the drinking starts. Seems like I always get in trouble when white folks been drinking too much." I gave him another slice of pie for free.

Nobody else bought pie. There was a long line for watermelons, which Bean Belly Thompson had brought in from the valley and was selling for a dollar each. Even warm, I reckoned, those melons would taste awful good on a hot day, and I watched enviously.

"Take something in trade for a slice of pie?" a voice behind me asked. It was Lizzie Flagg. Her brown hair was matted and dusty, dirt and scratches and mosquito bites marked her face, and her skinny arms and legs were dark with bruises. A tattered buckskin tunic left big holes where pieces of Lizzie showed through.

But Lizzie looked at me with eyes as shiny as seed pods, the most beautiful, observant, intelligent eyes. It was the beatingest thing! There was a human being in there. And she was talking to me.

"Need thirteen cents a slice," I said.

Lizzie Flagg sat right down. "See what I have to trade." She held out a dirty hand. On it, sitting there like it was tamed, was a dragonfly, green and silver and a spot of startling gold that glowed in the sunshine. She had it tied by a piece of thread. When she moved her hand, it flew but, caught by the thread, could only fly in frantic circles around her head. "You can fly it till it drops dead and then pin it to your wall. The colors is so purty in the sun."

"I will give you a small slice of pie for the dragonfly,"

I said, reaching out a finger and tentatively touching a soft wing. Lizzie likely didn't have thirteen cents anyway, and the dragonfly was glorious. "It's so beautiful."

Lizzie's face lit. "You think this is beautiful? Give me the pie and then I'll show you someplace special. Where I found the bug. Everything is beautiful there."

"I can't leave until I sell all the pies."

"Come on," she said, pulling me by the hand. "You can sell them when we get back."

Overwhelmed by Lizzie's enthusiasm, I gave her a slice of pie. While she ate, creek plum juice dripping down her face, I covered the pies from the flies and then let the dragonfly go. It flew away, the summer sun glinting off its wings.

"Why'd you do that?" Lizzie asked. "I ain't givin' the pie back."

"No matter," I said. "Pa never would let us keep wild things. And Mama says they eat, same as people, and she already has enough mouths to feed."

We climbed up out of the ravine, past a stand of young pines with their cones just starting to open, and over a rise. As I was getting so hot and droopy I thought I would perish, Lizzie said, "Here."

"Here" was a meadow in a clearing surrounded by trees. The meadow was filled with wildflowers, white, yellow, gold, orange, striped, dotted, small, large, and in between. Then Lizzie clapped her hands, and the wildflowers took to the air. Butterflies! Yellow with black and red, black splashed with orange, white and pink and blue. They were everywhere, flying and landing, covering entire branches of trees.

"Fairyland," I said.

"What's that?"

"You know, where fairies live."

"What's fairies?"

"You know, fairies, like elves and brownies."

"What are they?"

And so we spent Independence Day lying in a meadow like two pups in a basket, while I told Lizzie Flagg about fairies and elves and brownies. And the Count of Monte Cristo and the kind and beautiful Rebecca. If we lay real still, the butterflies would land on us so that we too seemed covered with wildflowers until we'd laugh and the butterflies would swarm back into the air.

Lizzie in return told me about her family, living off the land and eating only wild things, fruits and herbs and meat. "My pa is a drinkin' man, and mean. The rest of us can take it, but a few years back Ma jist stopped talkin', so feared was she of sayin' the wrong thing and gettin' smacked with his fist or his boot. She ain't crazy or stupid, jist hidin', I reckon."

I'd heard people complain about Linus Flagg when he'd been drinking, but I never thought he was such a bad egg that he'd beat on Mrs. Flagg and his own children. If Pa were alive, I thought, he'd fix Mr. Flagg's flint for sure!

Picking at a scab on her ankle, Lizzie continued. "The boys mostly live outside—hard to tell them from critters sometimes—but I stay, mostly for Ruby Ramona and Ma."

"Can't anybody do something?" I asked. "The sheriff maybe, or Brother Claymore?"

"It's our business. Someday we will do something."

Lizzie looked grim, and I was glad to change the subject. I told her about Robinson Crusoe, who lived off the land like the Flaggs, and she told me how to cook a wood rat, braid a slip-noose snare, and make a whistle out of bird bones and a deer-hoof rattle. We jawed away the afternoon.

I was surprised at what good company Lizzie was, her not knowing about books or anything, although I couldn't imagine what Essie and Opal would make of her. Shoot, I thought, Lizzie is here and they're not. Finally, hot and tired and satisfied, we started back down.

We arrived at the river to find the pies gone and a note: "Little sister, we et yer pies. They was good." And in one empty tin was enough dust for twenty pies, which meant I could buy a watermelon for myself and one for Butte, give Mama some dust, and still have some to put in my pickle crock! I was plumb rapturous.

Lizzie and I sat against a tree slurping the melon, letting the warm juice run down our chins. Leo Mack scratched a friction match across the seat of his pants to light the firecrackers and instead set his rump on fire. He hopped around like a frog on a griddle until Jimmy knocked him to the ground and rolled him in the dust. Finally the firecrackers were lit, and we screamed joyfully at the noise. Amos Frogge climbed a tree, fired his pistol, shouted "Three cheers for the Declaration of Independence," and fell out of the tree. Jimmy slung Amos over his shoulder, and all the miners went to the saloon.

I carried the melon home to Mama and Butte, stopping every few feet to rest my arms. Seems to me God made a big mistake when He failed to put handles on watermelons.

The rest of the night I spent dosing Prairie and Sierra with spruce tea and sugar to combat the effects of too much watermelon. Mama said it appeared Belle Scatter could use a darn sight more practice watching babies.

S
UMMER
1851

In which I learn about living and leaving
and letting go

Butte came home from hunting one day with a young injured raccoon. She obviously had gotten the worst in a fight, for her tail was missing and her back legs were chewed up some. I washed her sores and put cobwebs on them to stop the bleeding. Mama sighed and said Butte could keep her until she got well. That shows how sick Mama thinks he is, I thought with sudden terror.

Butte made the raccoon a cage of stout twigs. We called her Cora. When she improved, Butte wanted to let her go but I wouldn't, fearing the woods out there were not safe, what with bears and Indians and hunters. Next time the raccoon might not be so lucky. "Cora is better off right here with us, thank you very much," I told him. Pa might not have approved, but Cora stayed, getting well and getting bigger and getting mighty restless in that cage.

My pies turned out to be such a success at the Independence Day picnic that Mr. Scatter ordered ten each day to sell. Soon I was able to take some of the money and hire Lizzie Flagg to help roll crust and cook fruit. Mama said Lizzie was so dirty you could plant potatoes on her neck and not to let her near a pie. I helped Lizzie wash in the laundry tub and Mama gave her an old smock to wear. Lizzie looked a little like a weasel in a dress, but she sure smelled better.

"Never knew a Flagg could be so pretty," Butte said. Lizzie spit at him between her teeth.

Each day that summer Butte was worse. He coughed something awful, got real feverish, and sometimes seemed plumb out of his head. Mama fed him on slippery elm tea and onions boiled with honey, but all her tending did no good. He was so poorly in August that he had to give up hunting, and Lizzie took that over. I went with her sometimes, but I feared a bullet would bounce off the trees and rocks and come back and kill me like it did the bear in "The Ballad of Rattlesnake Jake." Dying was on my mind.