Hand to the Plow
By Ilene H. Kingsbury
Part III – Decision
Synopsis: A Welsh widow on her way to the valleys of the mountains in 1864, with her family of five children, pauses in a railway station in Philadelphia, awaiting a train to take them westward. For a compelling reason, the emigrant wishes to stop at a small town, Bradys Bend, in Pennsylvania. After checking her ticket and inquiring regarding routes, the emigrant makes a momentous decision. Eliza, the teenage daughter, hears her mother say, “I cannot do it.”
At that moment Eliza thought her mother looked just like a stone lion. The resemblance almost frightened her, for now she remembered a certain guardian of a doorway at a building near the emigration gate. It had been so big that two little children were playing in the shelter beneath its neck. Its two paws were outstretched to hang listlessly and deceptively fragile over the edge of a block of granite which made part of the regal entrance. The head of the beast had been raised as if listening to footfalls afar off. The eyes had had a facility, not often caught in stone, to follow one to either side of the steps and not really let one out of their sight. The shaggy mane had fallen in blanket folds about the front of the animal. A closer look had given Eliza the impression that a few cockle burrs might still be matted in the tresses of this king of the forest. When Eliza had first come upon this immobile giant she had shuddered. Its counterpart in the jungle would be hard to escape or overcome.
Eliza’s mother looked that way right now. Nothing evaded her gaze; her children knew who was head of their migrant household. The fastness to which they clung was all-encompassed in their mother. And yet, Eliza had heard her say I cannot. It was like putting a dried leaf and a tree trunk together and expecting both of them to do the same job. After all one wanted consistency. Before bringing herself to ask what her mother could not do, Eliza reviewed the two things they could do and which they had talked about ceaselessly since leaving the rolling ocean.
The first on the list was to stop off in Bradys Bend, wherever that was, and be reunited with the most dearly loved people they had on earth. The second on the list was to proceed by what means they could afford to a certain valley in the Rocky Mountains, no matter how far it was, or how long it would take, or what hardships should beset their way. Surely her mother could not have referred to either of these two long anticipated events. And of the two, maybe the second was what her mother talked aloud about. This war they were suddenly involved in, stories of Indians way out there a thousand miles just waiting for a triangle of hair on the top of her head; this funny railroad, with shaky, noisy boxes on wheels which sometimes caught fire from wood-burning cooking stoves installed therein for convenience of through passengers; this station that smelled of beans and dirt – perhaps now they cold leave all this, find the village where Grandma lived at Bradys Bend and settle down. Eliza already felt happier just knowing a decision had been made.
She recalled a day in her seventh year, now some eight or nine years back, filled with tears and Welsh singing, and prayers, and parting gifts, and bundles of belongings. Grandma and Grandpa and all but one of her mother’s brothers and sisters had set sail. They had been going to America. All would be well with them because they would live in Pennsylvania where the men could be coal miners as they had been in Wales, and where the women could find education and opportunity for their children.
For nine years Eliza had heard nothing but the phrase, When we go to America. It had echoed n her dreams, it had been set to music, it had been embroidered on a pillow, it had been written in letters trusted to the waves and the earth. It was lucky, she thought, that they were at last on their way, for that young man from the Merthyr mine was taking a liking to her and would in due time want her to stay and marry him and let her mother and brothers and sister go on without her to America. Ah, well, there must be likely Welsh boys in America, and thinking back about it, she sensed that her mother had snatched her out of the Old Country just in time.
Eliza looked again at the lion-like woman, her mother. her arms were folded, sort of encased by the ends of her shawl, her feet were close together, with the heels hugging the floor, and her head was bowed. There was a little saying in the family that if Mother sat like that, don’t say a word. No one had never said that word, so Eliza didn’t know what would happen if one did, but she knew that something very important was going on in her mother’s mind. Or perhaps it was her heart. If the latter, there would be more smiling and singing afterwards, but if the cold thoughts of deliberation took precedence, then there would be protests and tears, but still singing. Welshmen somehow express the Welshness within themselves by voicing that minor key I music which fortifies them in all trial.
At sixteen one cannot grasp all the subtle colors of living, but one can see it happening and can guess that Mother will somehow give all the answers. sometimes when the emigrant sat like this, she was formulating a prayer, and having previously mapped it out, presented it to the Lor din formal fashion. As her eyes were not closed, Eliza could not tell at what stage of thought or plan or supplication her mother was enaged in.
The moment drew itself out.
Mother stills at as if playing statue. Little Sannie flung an arm across Eliza’s shoulder and lifted herself from the cozy lap on which she had slumbered. Through the station door Eliza saw her three brothers bounding back along the tracks, each with giant strides along the ties. As they barged into the building they gave a wild, blood-curdling yell.
Nothing in Wales had ever sounded like that repellent, raucous yell. The ticket agent crouched behind his window and peered around the edge in terror. Upon seeing just three youthful Welsh boys approach, he steadied himself and called them to him. By now all occupants of the station were either on their feet or near the door with at least two bundles of property, trying to make good their escape.
”Young men, come here!” the agent ordered. They gave each other a wide-eyed signal of let’s see what we have done this time, and went toward the wicket. ”Do you know what that sound is you just made?” he screeched. They looked at each other again as if to say, hadn’t this man been around boys before, but didn’t answer him.
He found the answer quickly enough, and fairly blasted them to eternal punishment by saying between clinched teeth, “The Rebel Yell!” Then, gaining courage, and again becoming the informant on all subjects, which he imagined himself, he got the attention of all present. “Only men from the South make that yell,” said he. “Only when they have a gun in each hand and a knife in each boot top, do they give that yell. Boys, if you don’t want to be hanged or shot or taken to prison to starve and die, just don’t do that again.”
There was not much one could say after that. Eyes that had heretofore been sympathetic to their needs, now averted themselves.
The three boys cushioned their footfalls to the citadel of strength, which was their mother, and sat down. The emigrant unfolded her arms and raised her head to give each occupant of the station a long, long look.
Eliza realized fleetingly that the one word which they must never say to interrupt their mother when she was contemplating had been given. Perhaps they would live to regret the sound of that threatening, blood-curdling shriek. It had whiplashed their ears and their souls.
Imperceptibly, the travelers gained courage and now wanted to appear as if the incident was of no value. They arranged their baggage in neater rows, gave a stale biscuit to the youngest babies, and started to talk to each other in whispers which grew in volume as confidence was gained. Finally, a buzzing of words was manifest and the hive of bees was at its usual pitch and activity. In the resumed noise, the Welsh family grew less conspicuous.
Obviously, if their mother had come to any decision since talking to the agent, now was the time to make her statement before any more harm could be done. She motioned her brood closer and, looking especially at Eliza, said, “I was just saying I cannot do it.”
There is no surer way to get attention than by such a simple statement. The boys looked alert to the event. Sannie didn’t really care, such is six years of being the littlest and pampered at that. Eliza felt quite superior, having had a preview and having come to the wise conclusion that now they could leave this turmoil of emigration and go to Bradys Bend and live in peace and plenty, surrounded by all their kith and kin.
One boy asked, ”Can’t do what, Mother?”
”We cannot go to Bradys Bend.” If the boys had stood up and given, again, that Rebel Yell, no one of the five would have been more startled.
Eliza suddenly wanted to cry. She pressed her fingers over her mouth so no one could see her lips tremble. Eddie, the seventeen-year-old, just opened his mouth and forgot to close it. William and David actually groaned. Now, for sure, their mother had lost her mind. One of them leaned toward her and grasped her sleeve, just as though he could stop her from further considering this most horrible of decisions. Somehow, they thought, they could try to dissuade her. Let’s try, they thought. First they barraged her with questions.
Is it so far to the Bend that we haven’t time? The man that sells the tickets said that it is only twenty-five miles as the crow flies to where Grandma lives, after we reach Pittsburgh, and we could walk that far in two days, even carrying our bundles, if we had to. Just think, two days, and we can hear Grandpa call our names, feel the warm comfort of loving arms, and stand about answering and asking and singing and loving all those whom we have never really expected to see in this life again. Just think, no more cooking in a train, no more seeing only strangers. No more to explain that the Church had called them and they were answering. Just think, just think.
“I have thought,” she said quietly.
“I have thought about my little brother who used to work in the mines at the age of ten, side by side with my father, just so they could save enough money to come to America. I want to see him. I have thought about my older sister, surely now a grandmother, who was as a mother to me when others came first for our mother’s care. I have thought about little Gwennie who was so gentle that she never ventured from our hearth fires and never found a mate. I can still hear big William sing as he rose in the mine hoist each night and I remember that, as he neared home, his voice drew children and men and women to him and they joined him in song until the hills burst with beauty. I have thought of them all.”
The children were quite carried away with this word picture painted again for them by their loving mother. And what about Grandpa? And Grandma? The emigrant dared not speak aloud of her parents, lest in voicing their names, even, she should weaken in her resolve. Their life in America, even in a mill town where they were still close to coal mines, was so marvelous and bright and full and prosperous that with each letter she had rejoiced in their blessings. Their hope, as well as hers, had been that some day she, too, would come to America and be with them forever. Now she was on their borderland. Now she could actually walk to find them and it would not take many days. Now, at last, the haven of which they had talked for a quarter of a century was just over the rolling green mountains and down a river valley.
(To be continued)