sempstress, but the bodice was a piece of Branscomb family lace, Belgian
and in perfect condition. The cake came from the best French pastry shop in St. Louis,
and Margaret, Beatrice, and Lavinia all wore new hats from the May Company hat
department. Elizabeth had seven new dresses, and her linen chest was full. Best of all,
Margaret had had no hand in filling it. Mercer took his bride on a wedding trip to Hot
Springs, down in Arkansas, a famous spa, and then they went to live in their new house in
Kirkwood, which was two or three blocks from the railroad station. This meant that
Elizabeth could come visit Margaret and Lavinia with hardly any trouble at all. Margaret
herself rode the train back home after the wedding, and there were quite a few
unaccompanied women on it, though, of course, they kept to themselves and did not go
into cars where food or drink was being served.
MARGARET was twenty-three. Two girls her age, Mathilda Tierney and Martha
Johnson, had gone out West to Idaho as itinerant teachers. They had found an abundance
of eligible men and had married right away. It was exciting, it seemed, for a man or a
woman to set out alone, not so exciting for them to set out as a couple. To Margaret,
however, it seemed like a long trip, no matter how you made it. Lavinia said that she was
a lazy thing, and that books had taught her to be more lazy. After you read a few of them,
you had the feeling you knew all about wherever the book took place, so why take the
long train ride? On top of all of this, according to many authors, dangers abounded in all
of these locations. You had the dangers of train wrecks and gunshots and sinking ships
and outlaws, but also the likelihood that you would be swindled. Inheritances would be
stolen. Letters would go astray. The friendliest stranger would be the one that, long ago,
purloined the deed to the family home. How much more preferable, it seemed to
Margaret, in spite of the uncertainty of her future, to wake up in the warmth of the
morning and look out the window at blooming honeysuckle, the skittering of squirrels,
the cawing of crows and jays as they objected to the cats.
The natural thing would be that a bookish girl would teach school. There were
schools around, both county schools and local academies, and plenty of the girls teaching
in them knew less than she did. She might have talked her way into one of them, and
perhaps she would have gone to a teacher-training institute--there was one held for three
weeks each summer in the county seat. But the girls who taught school did not speak
highly of the work--the big boys and the little girls and the firecrackers and the lost and
damaged books and the evident indifference of one and all tested the teachers' patience
unmercifully. The schoolhouses were drafty and chill or stuffy and hot. A schoolmistress
had to dress with extra sobriety. A girl of twenty might look thirty or forty, and the older
boys, who were almost her age, or, in some cases, older than she was, would tease her
anyway. Lavinia felt that teaching was an occupation of last resort, to be attempted only
when all matrimonial prospects were exhausted. Look at Martha Johnson--all the way
across the country in Idaho, and what was her honeymoon, according to her aunt, but
doing all the dishes her new husband and his brother had dirtied over four or six months,
and carrying in and firing all the water herself--there were no servants in Idaho, even
uncooperative ones, but she was married, safe and sound. As long as her mother could
talk like this, Margaret knew, she wouldn't have to teach.
Margaret and Lavinia looked on the bright side every day. There was an apple
tree (reliably pollinated by the tree next door, so that it bore every year), a pear tree, a
rhubarb patch, a raspberry patch, and a strawberry bed. Their old horse Aurelius lived in
the barn (replaced on the farm by a much younger and more elegant pair of black
and in perfect condition. The cake came from the best French pastry shop in St. Louis,
and Margaret, Beatrice, and Lavinia all wore new hats from the May Company hat
department. Elizabeth had seven new dresses, and her linen chest was full. Best of all,
Margaret had had no hand in filling it. Mercer took his bride on a wedding trip to Hot
Springs, down in Arkansas, a famous spa, and then they went to live in their new house in
Kirkwood, which was two or three blocks from the railroad station. This meant that
Elizabeth could come visit Margaret and Lavinia with hardly any trouble at all. Margaret
herself rode the train back home after the wedding, and there were quite a few
unaccompanied women on it, though, of course, they kept to themselves and did not go
into cars where food or drink was being served.
MARGARET was twenty-three. Two girls her age, Mathilda Tierney and Martha
Johnson, had gone out West to Idaho as itinerant teachers. They had found an abundance
of eligible men and had married right away. It was exciting, it seemed, for a man or a
woman to set out alone, not so exciting for them to set out as a couple. To Margaret,
however, it seemed like a long trip, no matter how you made it. Lavinia said that she was
a lazy thing, and that books had taught her to be more lazy. After you read a few of them,
you had the feeling you knew all about wherever the book took place, so why take the
long train ride? On top of all of this, according to many authors, dangers abounded in all
of these locations. You had the dangers of train wrecks and gunshots and sinking ships
and outlaws, but also the likelihood that you would be swindled. Inheritances would be
stolen. Letters would go astray. The friendliest stranger would be the one that, long ago,
purloined the deed to the family home. How much more preferable, it seemed to
Margaret, in spite of the uncertainty of her future, to wake up in the warmth of the
morning and look out the window at blooming honeysuckle, the skittering of squirrels,
the cawing of crows and jays as they objected to the cats.
The natural thing would be that a bookish girl would teach school. There were
schools around, both county schools and local academies, and plenty of the girls teaching
in them knew less than she did. She might have talked her way into one of them, and
perhaps she would have gone to a teacher-training institute--there was one held for three
weeks each summer in the county seat. But the girls who taught school did not speak
highly of the work--the big boys and the little girls and the firecrackers and the lost and
damaged books and the evident indifference of one and all tested the teachers' patience
unmercifully. The schoolhouses were drafty and chill or stuffy and hot. A schoolmistress
had to dress with extra sobriety. A girl of twenty might look thirty or forty, and the older
boys, who were almost her age, or, in some cases, older than she was, would tease her
anyway. Lavinia felt that teaching was an occupation of last resort, to be attempted only
when all matrimonial prospects were exhausted. Look at Martha Johnson--all the way
across the country in Idaho, and what was her honeymoon, according to her aunt, but
doing all the dishes her new husband and his brother had dirtied over four or six months,
and carrying in and firing all the water herself--there were no servants in Idaho, even
uncooperative ones, but she was married, safe and sound. As long as her mother could
talk like this, Margaret knew, she wouldn't have to teach.
Margaret and Lavinia looked on the bright side every day. There was an apple
tree (reliably pollinated by the tree next door, so that it bore every year), a pear tree, a
rhubarb patch, a raspberry patch, and a strawberry bed. Their old horse Aurelius lived in
the barn (replaced on the farm by a much younger and more elegant pair of black
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