Cedars

    She supposed there was no use fretting herself about it. Times were difficult and Papa had more than enough to worry about since Mama died. She only hoped Effie and Helen could take care of little Ryan when she moved to the Langdon's. She would certainly have her hands full with the Langdon children and wouldn't be able to do much for Ryan, though she would write to him when she had the time.

    She looked around her bedroom, trying to decide what she could take with her and what she would leave. The dresses and the work bonnet would have to go with her, but Effie could have her Sunday bonnet. She would miss it - it was the only really nice thing she owned. Mama had promised to make her a pretty dress and they had even picked out the pattern and material. Then Mama got sicker and sicker, and Liza had her hands full trying to keep the household together. When Mama finally died that Winter, there was only time for a brief pause in everyone's life.

    She would leave the Reader and ask Helen to read to Ryan every night, since he loved the stories, or perhaps just the attention. Mama's death had been hardest on him, she thought. He was so young it was hard not to think of him as a baby, despite his independent streak. Sometimes he would be retelling some past adventure and reach the point where Mama figured in. His voice would trail off awkwardly, leaving an uncomfortable silence. None of them had really come to terms with Mama's death, but Liza felt a particular pang at Ryan's little-boy-lost look.

    Well, there was no help for it. He'd just have to get by the best he could, like all of them. She would take one book of poems to read to the Langdon children. They might enjoy it, and she liked reading it. It called up memories of Mama reading to them in the evenings, gathered around her in the parlor. Mama always made the poems come alive so, as though she found them an escape from the drudgery of work and illness. By the time she was six, Liza had committed dozens of poems to memory and could still hold Ryan spellbound with them.

    She let her eyes roam over the room - the doublebed she shared with Effie, the little wardrobe that held all her clothes, the basin and pitcher for washing, the chamberpot for nights when it was too cold to run outside. How nice it would be, she thought, to have lots of dresses, to go to parties, to have one of those new-fangled gadgets to wring the water out of the wash, to have a pump inside the house. Why not wish for someone to help with the housework too, she asked herself, as long as you're wishing.

    Well, wishes wouldn't get the baking done and the dough should have risen by now. She wanted to get the week's baking done early so she could make a pie to go with supper. Papa always loved pie and had given her a dozen Roman Beauty apples with the terse suggestion that the children might like a pie. It was so typical of him to claim everything he did was for the children's sake. It was always "The children might enjoy a picnic down by the river," whenever he wanted to go fishing. Or "Your mother wants to visit with the ladies," whenever he wanted to swap Civil War stories with Henry McCardle and Ezra Hanks over big, black cigars. Tonight she would cut him the biggest piece of pie and set it in front of him and say "The children couldn't eat it all." He would get her meaning and appreciate it, though he would never let on.

    She wished they still had a dairy cow so she could have made ice cream to go with the pie. Perhaps if Papa got work on the bridge they were building up near Columbus, he would buy a cow again, though he'd have to teach one of the others to milk it.

    Enough daydreaming, she told herself. It was time to get back to work, and work enough to be done. She had to finish planting the garden before next Sunday, since she was going to Langdon's on Monday. She realized with mild surprise it would be her birthday. She would be thirteen, almost a woman.

-------

    Looking out the window as she cleaned up the apple peels, she could see Ryan sitting by the gate, pretending to whittle while he waited for Papa to come home. She would ask him to make some pegs to put in the barn for the harnesses to hang on. That would please both him and Papa. The girls should be coming home from school soon and she would have to make sure they did their homework. It was lucky she had finished school herself by the time Mama died. She wouldn't have had time for the housework and homework too. If Papa wasn't too tired and if he'd been able to get a paper, she would ask him to read it to them. He always embellished the articles to suit his fancy and kept them all in stitches.

    "Hello, Helen. Didn’t Effie come home with you?"

    "She stayed to help the teacher with some papers. So she said. I think she's in love with him." She threw her books on the table and began cutting a slice of bread. "Ryan," she called out the window. "Would you fetch me the butter from the well please?" She settled down on the woodbox by the stove and contemplated the Secret Romance she was sure was brewing between the schoolmaster and her sister. She wondered if she would ever feel the way she suspected Effie of feeling. She decided not. None of the boys around here seemed civilized, much less attractive. They only wanted to get out of school as soon and as often as possible and get back to their farms. "I want someone who doesn't even know what a farm is," she thought out loud.

    Yes, thought Liza to herself, and you'll never be happy with the world as it is. "What homework did the teacher give you today?"

    "He gave me three Algebra problems and wants an essay on one of the English poets by Friday. I think I'll write about Keats."

    She stuffed half a thick slice of bread in her mouth and reached for the loaf.

    "That's enough bread for now," Liza said. "You'll ruin your appetite for supper."

    "What's for supper, Liza? Roast chicken?"

    "You know we only have chicken on Sunday. And speaking of chickens, don't forget you have to clean the chickenhouse today."

    "Ugh! I hate cleaning that old place. It's smelly and dirty and the rooster always tries to peck me."

    "That's why it needs cleaning. And you're bigger than the rooster. If you like chicken for supper you've got to help take care of them. They don't get on the table by magic and I just haven't enough time. You have to help out. You'll have to help out more, once I've gone to the Langdons`."

    "I wish it were me going, Liza. They say Mr. Langdon has a whole room full of books. I'd work there for nothing if he let me read all the books."

    "Yes, and you'd never get any work done, just the reading. It might be fine to read all the time if we were wealthy, but we're not and you can't. Now put on your old dress and get started on the chickenhouse. Get it done today, before supper. Otherwise, you won't get any pie."

    "You baked a pie? Liza, I love you! What kind?"

    "Apple. It's in the oven now."

    "I really do love you Liza. I'll miss you and so will the others." She went to her room to change.

    And Papa will miss me most, thought Liza. The others don't understand him like I do and he doesn't know how to talk to children. He's going to be lonely. So will I.
 
    She sat down for the first time since breakfast and suddenly realized how tired she was. Tomorrow she had to do the washing, and the ironing the day after. On Friday she would finish the garden, then on Saturday she would clean the house and change the beds. After church, maybe she and Papa would have time to talk.

    She felt sorry at leaving, but wasn't sure if it was for him or for herself. She supposed she was setting out on her own life, but it didn't feel like that. It was just one more thing she had to do because it had to be done. She was old enough to earn her keep and ought to do so. Maybe she would meet someone and get married someday. Maybe you'll be an old maid, she told herself, always tending someone else's children. Somehow, she didn't think so.

    Effie came through the door with Ryan and she saw Papa down the road talking with a neighbor. She stood up and began putting the week's baking away. It was time to start making supper.

--------

    Papa was sitting in the big chair and the little ones had been shoo'd off to bed. Liza sat in the rocker and reached into the darning basket for the next pair of his stockings that needed mending. She turned toward the kerosene lantern to thread her needle.

    "Elizabeth, you know I wouldn't let you go to Langdon`s if I didn't have to. He offered room and board and five dollars a month. That's good pay for someone your age. God knows we need the money, but I want you to keep one dollar of it. That way you'll have something put by to help furnish a home of your own someday.

    "I know, Papa. I'm glad to help any way I can. I just hope you and the others can get by all right. Maybe Effie and Helen can take care of the house. I don't know who'll take care of you and Ryan."

    "We'll make out, girl. It's you I'm thinking of. You shouldn't have to work so hard, so young. Maybe some nice young fellow will come calling in a couple of years and you can at least be doing the work for your own family. Langdon's is a closer to town and they have a lot of church socials and such, more people for you to meet. You're a pretty one. Remind me of your mother when we met."

    "Maybe. Maybe I'll go West. They say women are scarce out there. Remember Mr. Luby saying every woman who comes into town get a dozen proposals the first day?"

    "Every woman, yes. It seems like yesterday you were just a little girl. Now you're a woman, or close to it. You've had to grow up fast, Liza. Faster than I would have liked. It's too bad you mother isn't with us. A girl needs someone, and although I try, there are things I just can't help you with."

    "I'll be just fine. I miss Mama too, Papa. I'll miss all of you, but you and Ryan most. Mama's dying was hardest on him. I'll ask Helen to read to him and that will help, but he'll need to do things with you too. Otherwise, the girls will just run right over him. Are they hiring in Columbus?"

    "There's a man starting the hiring tomorrow. I'll be there bright and early and I stand a good chance of getting work for at least the summer. There can't be too many bridge construction men with engineering degrees. If they don't need me, I may be able to work with one of Langdon's friends building houses. Not exactly my cup of tea, but work's scarce these days."

    "I know. Johnny Wilson hasn't been able to find anything for months. His mother says he may go prospecting for gold in Colorado if he can find a way to get there. They say even if you don't find gold, there's plenty of work to go around."

    "I should think there would be. The whole territory is nearly unbuilt. The trouble is, those mining camps are here today and gone tomorrow. Steady work needs more. There's more future there in ranching. When the gold is dug up and gone, people will still have to eat."

    "I suppose so. Were you able to buy a paper today?"

    "Luckily, Elizabeth, one of the traveling salesmen at the Garnett House left this behind." With a sly grin, he took his coat down from the rack and extracted a newspaper. "None other than the Columbus Dispatch."

    "Mercy! I never heard of it. Is it any good?"

    "Why don't you read it and find out?"

    "You read it, Papa. That's more fun."

    Papa took out his reading glasses and unfolded the paper with ponderous gravity. Holding it at arm's length, he posed pompously and began. "The world seems much as usual, daughter. Rascality and Ignorance battle vainly with the forces of Light and Right. Or perhaps it's the other way round."

    "Read, Papa. Don't orate."

        <The Illustrious and Confabulated Senator from Ohio has
        today confirmed the intention of the President to bestow
        upon our esteemed citizenry the dubious benefit of his
        presence in our Capitol during his upcoming trip. While
        purportedly to hear the view of the natives regarding the
        Free Trade issue, your correspondent has it on highly
        questionable authority that his looming arrival is
        actually intended to give the local Magnates of Commerce
        an opportunity to contribute to the coffers of the
        President's upcoming campaign. In other words, to pay
        their annual bribes. The President is expected to be
        accompanied by his wife, who will not allow him to get a
        word in edgewise and who will sneer daintily at such
        quaint Ohio customs as civility and washing one's hands
        before dinner.>

        <A farm laborer reputed to be one William O'Brian was
        arrested for public drunkenness. He was brought before
        Justice R.P. Bumble and sentenced to spend the next ten
        days at the county workhouse, gluing back together the
        stones he had broken into pieces during his similar
        stay three months ago.>

        <Western Union messages carry a tale of a fabulous gold
        strike in Western Colorado. Sources there say that if
        the native tribes can be induced to allow miners to
        pursue the issue, precious metals may be found, amounting
        to as much as $37.53. Several New York moneybags are
        reported interested and will assuredly swallow up any
        profits to be had in the affair.>

    Liza laughed so hard she couldn't keep her mind on her work, as she discovered when she stuck herself with her needle. "Seriously, Papa, I sometimes wonder what the newspapers would be like if you wrote for them."

    "They might not have as much news, but they'd be more interesting reading, wouldn't they?"

    "Surely they would, Papa. Probably tell us just as much of what we really need to know, too."

    "You know, Elizabeth, there no way to tell folks what it's really like out West. The country hasn't seen the like since my grandparents crossed the Ohio. A frontier is a different world entirely. Even the people aren't the same. Different needs drive them. Here, we're used to everything being settled, controlled, polite. A predictable and orderly life. Out West, it not so orderly and certainly not so predictable, but men's' lives are what they make of them."

    "You liked it out there, didn't you, Papa?"

    "Yes. It took some getting used to, but on the whole, I liked it. Liked the land, liked the people."

    "Why didn't you stay there? You could have sent for Mama."

    "Well, your mother didn't want to leave her kith and kin in these parts. And I suspect she was afraid of the West. It can be a pretty rowdy place."

    "Did she know how much you liked the West?"

    "I suppose, but your mother was loathe to move. And she could be very loathe, when the mood took her."

    "I still think we should have gone. We don't often get a chance to follow a dream. Do you still dream, Papa?"

    A sadness crossed his face and he became somber for a moment. "Not often, girl, not often. Mostly for you and the others." He sat back, pretending to read the paper, but she could see his mind was elsewhere. She wondered if things would have been different for him if Mama were alive. She promised herself she would not let it happen to her. She would follow her dreams! Whether voicing her thoughts or his own, he said, "Don't you give up, Liza. Ever."

--------