A History Lesson

A HISTORY LESSON

         A wide ocean lay between her and the home she had left. When she was leaving to come here she had exulted in the fact she was never coming back. Now it bore in upon her. She was never going back there again, she would never see her parents again. They would die and be buried with their ancestors and she would probably not even know when it happened. Letters took forever to travel from one side of the sea to the other and since her mother had never learned to read and write her only contact would be with her father.

         If she had never learned to read and write she would not be here either. She had been eager to learn and to know. She had sat on the steps and listened while her father, the Dominie, taught the village boys their letters. She often wondered why the boys were so slow to take it up when for her it was so easy. Why was this knowledge reserved for boys who didn't even want to learn and why did they intend to keep it from her? By the time she was five years old she could read better than most of the men.

         Because her father was the Dominie he owned books. Almost all the books in the village and surrounding crofts were right there in his study. Most of them were over her head and hard to understand but the fascination of words and letters on a page was enough. She read poetry and was enchanted:

'Life is real and life is earnest
And the grave is not its goal
Dust thou art, to dust returnest
Was not spoken of the soul ~~ "

         Those words stirred her soul. How could they be for men only? For men who did not even appreciate them?

         She had never wished to be a boy. To her mind boys were coarse crude things, bad smelling things with clumping boots, trying to be like their fathers. She had read in one of her father's books that women are dust once removed. Man was made from dust and woman from man. A later and loftier piece of work.

         Her father's library did not include recreational reading. She would not meet up with Dickens and Twain until later on. But she devoured the printed page every chance she got, in secret. Girls were not supposed to do this. She was not supposed to have a philosophy or know anything about the kingdom and politics.

         She thought about what she had read while she did the normal work of women and she digested it in her mind while doing mindless tasks such as churning and kneading. Her mind was alive and eager.

         But she also knew that she had passed a line girls were not supposed to cross. When her mother found out about her literacy she became concerned. There could be no marriage for Nancy in this village. Farmers did not want a literate wife, one who might know more than they knew and at the same time not know her place! They wanted wives who would prove their husbands' manhood by bearing and birthing the next generation, and occupy themselves with the children and the kitchen. Her mother always said a woman who keeps her house and does it right has no time for anything else.

         As Nancy came into her teens her mother's prediction was coming true. No boy's father came to the Dominie to discuss marriage of his son with Nancy. The loss of her illiteracy almost equaled the loss of virginity when it came to marriage ability. If this girl was to find a husband she would not find one here. She would have to emigrate.

         Nancy had read about America and been excited by the history of the early colonies and the revolution and the westward progress across the land. She had wanted to go there, to see all this. A place where little girls were not only permitted to go to school, but were required to do so!

         She had seen the newspapers that were given to the women to use as kindling and wrapping paper after the men had finished with them. She knew about the Civil War. She heard the men talking about it as she moved among them serving their meals. She heard them saying that the young country to the west is only proving what good Scotsmen had always said about it: they were not capable of governing themselves.

         She knew about slavery. She had read about it in the Bible and she had read about it in those newspapers when she could get a page or two to read in secret before she put it in the bin where old paper was saved for purposes other than reading. She knew something about America. The very idea of a new young country where things were different had captured her imagination and her soul.

         So when the Dominie told her that there was a man in America who had agreed to marry her and was not disturbed by the fact she could read, she eagerly agreed. This man actually considered her literacy an asset! He was back from the war and his parents desired to find him a wife.

         After weeks of preparation Nancy boarded a ship that was to take her to America. That is, if sea monsters not devour it or pirates board it on the way.

         At eighteen she had almost achieved spinsterhood in her own country. There were other girls on the voyage who could not have found a husband in Scotland. One had a harelip; another had a birthmark concealing half her face in a purple mass. They had one thing in common, they had been promised to men who were waiting for them beyond the salty sea.

         Nancy was the only pretty one of the lot, with her masses of curly red hair and blue eyes and flawless china doll skin. She was the quintessential Scotswoman. She knew her promised husband was also a Scot. And he wanted a wife who could read! She stood at the taffrail day after day as if by standing there she would reach the New World ahead of everybody else.

         And then she was standing on dry land again. She was in America!

         A man came and looked at the tag tied to her dress. "This be her," he said and a gangling boy came over to them. "You be Nancy Sanderson?

         She nodded. He said, "I be Matthew Russell. Welcome to America."

         This then was the husband she had come to meet and marry. She liked him at once. He had red hair too, not as flaming red as hers, and not as curly, but red enough. He had blue eyes. His hair was shoulder length blowing in the wind and he had the beginnings of a beard on his chin. She was not even up to his shoulder. "You be a right pretty one," he said. His smile was all that was needed for her to fall in love with him.

         They were married in a little church as soon as they reached her new husband's home. Her new mother in law looked at her with some disdain. She was petite and slender and the older woman thought she would not be able to bring big strong sons into the world or do the work of a real American woman. But she could see that her Willie was enamored of her. And that was good; if he was to spend the rest of his life with her it was better he liked her.

         He had been too young to be in much of the fighting. The war had been mostly over by the time he joined a regiment. Now just turning twenty he was about to begin his life, marry, father children, and work his own bit of land in the tradition of his fathers.

         He had an intention to go to a place called Michigan where there was still room for sheep. This was almost as much of a move away from family for him as coming to America had been for Nancy. Anna was against their moving away like that, but she had nothing to say about it.

         They received gifts and congratulations and blessings from Will's parents and their neighbors and then they went to the cabin that was to be their home until they moved to Michigan.

         He called her Nan. It sounded American and she liked that. It sounded a little like a pet name. He seemed overcome by shyness now they were alone together in the room with the big bed and the cedar chest and the washstand.

         He had never touched a woman before and the kiss they had exchanged at their wedding was the first for them both. He well knew what he was supposed to do but for the moment he hesitated and held himself back from her because this was so new. He had seen this girl for the first time not a week before, and he was afraid of scaring her, of hurting her. Was she afraid, too? He couldn't tell.

         They got into the big bed together and Nancy giggled. She couldn't help it. All her life she had been cautioned to keep away from boys and now she was supposed to get very close to this one. But she liked him so terribly much!

         All the things they had been told never to do, never to even think of doing, were suddenly the very things they were supposed to do, expected to do, and indeed wanted to do. He kissed her again, first shyly and then with a great enthusiasm.

         He was going to know her in the way the Bible said, the way a husband is supposed to. The way he had heard the boys talk about, the things he had envisioned in dreams. A young Adam with his Eve. He had been told girls didn't like this part of marriage and a man would have to take it rather than wait to be given. But Nancy was clinging to him returning his kisses, setting him on fire. Two became one flesh in those moments that followed.

         Anna talked to her the next day as they were cooking in the kitchen, She had read her son's face that morning at breakfast and he did not have to tell her anything, she could tell. She said to Nancy, "It's what you have to do. You have to let him, that's how it is."

         Nancy said, "I love him Mother Anna. I want to make him happy."

         Anna loved him too and she thought right then this pretty young thing was a rival for her son's devotion. It was obvious he was enamored of her, why wouldn't he be? She was fresh and young and pretty with a slender young body. But all that flaming red hair! She probably had a flaming temper to go with it. Willie would have to tame her fast if he was ever going to. Anna wanted her Willie to be a happy man and he surely was this morning.

         A year later Nancy and Will were holding Matthew between them, the child that had just been taken from her body. He was a fine big strong baby. He already had red hair. Her son at her breast Nancy thought she would burst with happiness. Will was prideful. For all who knew them he had proved his manhood and fathered a son. Not just a son, but also a good strong son, a boy who would do him proud in years to come.

         It was not an easy life. Will worked long hard hours and his hands were scarred and hard from the work he did. Nancy's life was no easier. She learned to carry Matthew on her back the way the Indian women did. Water had to be carried from the well or the spring. It was a long walk back, carrying the heavy buckets.

         Nancy had brought with her some books all the way from Scotland, Pilgrim's Progress, the Bible, a hymnbook and a book of poetry. For their first anniversary together, knowing what she loved, Will went to Flint and bought her a book. It was Oliver Twist She had never had a novel to read before. She devoured it, reading it aloud to Will while she nursed the baby, and he turned the pages for her.

         It seemed they never made any headway establishing their farm. The lambs were born sickly and died all too often and the winters, in this land away from the gentling influence of the ocean, were harsh and bitter. She had seen snow in Scotland, a dusting of sparkling white on the ground, which was gone by noon. Nothing like this!

         In a year's time Matthew had a brother. Times were hard but they had their faith and their love for one another and for their children.

         Back in Scotland she had heard about the naked savages who were killers and kidnappers. Here she was finding that the Indians were people just like herself and her young husband. She made friends with many of the women and her husband worked side by side with the men. They were not savages and in this climate they certainly were not naked.

         They learned one another's speech until they were speaking a language that was part Indian and part English with a bit of French thrown in for good measure. When Nancy began teaching Matthew to read his red skinned friend Luke wanted to learn too and soon she had a group of boys and girls gathering in her home to learn. By this time she had Matthew, Joseph, William and Anna. Indian women nursed their babies in public without any shyness so Nancy did the same thing, teaching her class in her kitchen with Anna at the breast.

         She liked the Indian ways. She had heard that Indians were taciturn and emotionless and grim and silent. She was finding them warm, loving and with great humor and wonderful laughter. She had been completely accepted as one of them.

         Tragedy struck that following summer. A trader had come through selling things like spools of thread and needles and writing paper. It was very good to be able to obtain these things that came from so far away. But with the trader and his wares had come something else, something invisible and deadly. Diphtheria!

         Within a fortnight of the trader's visit people began falling ill. The Indians were hardest hit because the diphtheria was a European disease against which they had no resistance. Often they were dead within forty-eight hours of coming down with it. Nancy had immunity to the disease, hard won by having lived through it. She greatly feared Will would take it and die but he did not. He fought his way through it and recovered. During the time that he was too ill to know about it, their four children became ill and one by one they died. Anna first and then the boys. Nancy was afraid to tell him the children were gone lest the shock of it kill him too. Day by day she nursed and cared for him, day by day she helped with the care of the sick and dying Indians. Day by day she helped with the digging of the graves. Four of the graves she helped to dig were for her own children.

         She tended the sick, comforted the dying and wept with the bereaved. The sickness went through the Indian community like a scythe cutting grain and when it finally abated more than a hundred had died, including all the children.

         Will's recovery was slow and discouraging. He was grieving his children and many friends and the sadness was hindering the return of his health. It was late into the winter when their fifth child was born. They named him Walter Matthew, after a distant relative and after his lost elder brother.

         Will took comfort in the arrival of the new son and when it was time for a farmer to begin the labors of springtime he was fit and able to take up his work.

         Looking at him now she knew he was not much like the gangling youth she had met on the day of her arrival in the New World. He was still only in his twenties but he had aged through hard work and sickness and sorrow. The boyish awkwardness she had loved was gone. But in its place was a maturity and strength she loved even more. Life was hard and short in those days. A man of forty-five was called old. Children had no choice but to grow up quickly.

         There is a super kind of strength that comes on women at such times as Nancy had just lived through. Pregnant with their fifth child she had worked early and late caring for sick and dying neighbors, digging graves, trying to maintain order in the disintegrating community. Now she had brought forth a healthy child and restarted their family.

         Much had changed since her first meeting with her shy young boy of a husband. She too was older and her hair was fading to gray. She had carried a heavy load and her carriage was no longer so bouncy and pert as it once had been. Will and Nancy's love for one another had grown into a powerful bond that would last as long as they both would live.

         In the next six years they had four more children, two more boys and two girls. They would live to see Michigan become a State.

         Will became ill when he reached the age of fifty. He quickly lost weight and was soon bedridden. There were doctors but none who could help him and one spring day he died in Nancy's arms. He was laid to rest beside his four older children. Nancy, who had come here to be a wife, was now a widow.

         Her grief was inconsolable because Will had been everything to her. She had adored him with all her heart and soul and her life work had been caring for him and his children. The children were grown and had children of their own and Will was gone. He no longer needed her but she still needed him. It was a long dark year for her that followed. A friend of Will's took over the chores for her and brought his sons to help. He hunted and brought her meat. Peter's wife had died in childbirth a while ago.

         As time went on Nancy and Peter became close friends, by the next spring what they had not expected or believed possible had happened and they fell in love. Nancy still wept sometimes for Will and he still thought of Caroline. But a new life was beginning for them.

         They had no children but they were to have twenty years together. Peter was widowed a second time in his sixtieth year and a year later he died too.

         Peter's children and Nancy's children prospered and built their own lives and married and had children. And one of those children, one of the ones born to Walter Matthew, was I.