Prairie Lace
by RC DeWinter
Title
Prairie Lace
Artist
RC DeWinter
Medium
Painting - Digital Oils-paintography-photopainting
Description
Copyright 2015 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved
The Ranch Wife's Tale
M'name's Alice Keyes.
I had two other names,
one I was born to,
t'other was m'first husband's,
but no sense botherin' with 'em now.
One last name's all a body needs,
'specially when you're old as I am
and lucky to be able to remember anything.
That's why I'm tellin' you my tale.
If I don't there'll be nobody left to know it.
I was born at the start of the new century
in Frenchville, Maine, on the doorstep to Canada.
Never knew a dad,
but Ma used to tell me about him,
'specially on long cold winter nights
when we'd huddle, wrapped in blankets,
by the grate of the old wood stove in the kitchen.
She'd nip hooch and get talky
and tell me all kinds of stories,
most of 'em not the kind you'd tell a kid,
but Ma was what was kindly called a free spirit
and unkindly called things I won't repeat
and lived by her own messy rules.
It was just her and me
and the ghost of the dad I never knew,
though she had plenty of men friends.
I guess she met 'em down to the diner
where she worked,
and when I got older I guessed she
worked those men pretty good after hours too.
I grew up plain
and too wise in the ways of the world too young.
I was smart enough but couldn't wait
to be done with school,
so I quit soon's I was able and worked cleanin' house
for the few rich folks in town.
Fred, Widow Atterbury's son who ran the family mill,
took a fancy to me though I'm sure I don't know why.
He'd go out of his way to be around
when I was there polishin' the silver
and dustin' all those drop-crystal lamps in the parlor.
Long story short, one day
when I was almost seventeen I woke up pregnant.
Course it was Fred's, and bless him,
he didn't shirk from the truth.
He marched right into his ma's dressin' room
and told her about it.
She carried on loud enough
to be heard in three counties but in the end
we went before old Judge Cray
and before you could blink I was young Mrs. Atterbury.
Ma was tickled I'd managed to land in such a cozy nest
but there was no managin' about it -
it's just what happened.
Four months after, the baby come too soon.
Poor little thing never even took a breath.
We named her Sarah after the widow anyway
and buried her in the Atterbury plot.
I was pretty tore up and so was Fred,
but we had diff'rent ways of dealin' with it.
I kept m'tears to m'self,
figurin' we could try again soon for a family,
and I'd go visitin' with the widow
or mess up the kitchen bakin' a cake
or sit in the parlor tryin' t'learn embroidery
but mostly lookin' out through the
lace curtains on the windows
at the leaves changin' in the fall.
I loved those curtains.
They made everything soft and pretty
when the sunlight came shinin' in.
Bur Fred...well, instead of comin' home
when he was done down at the office at the mill,
he started goin' out to the tavern.
He'd drink too much
and then get into the fancy new car he'd bought
to take us down to Portland for our honeymoon
and drive out into the country too fast in the dark
on those twisty-turny bumpy roads.
Ma tried to tell me he wasn't alone on those drives
and was runnin' around with Nancy LaMothe,
her who ev'rybody knew
was no better than she should be -
shades of Ma herself! -
but I never believed that 'til the night
Fred musta been drunker than usual
and missed a turn out by the Tunney farm.
There wasn't much left of the car,
and by the time George Tunney
got out there to see what happened
Nancy'd bled to death.
They told me Fred never knew anything;
broke his neck straightaway.
Maine lost all charm for me then.
Baby dead, runaround husband dead,
stuck at the widow's like a poor relation.
Nothin' to look forward to but crumbs and pity.
I started thinkin' and figgered my only hope
was to start over someplace else.
But where, and how?
The soldiers were comin' home from the Great War then,
and there was plenty of men out west on the prairie,
and some of 'em was lonesome and wanted wives.
I never did meet a soldier but I'd read the newspaper
and every so often see advertisements
in a column headed Wives Wanted:
"Clean, hardworking man of 40, carpenter, never married,
wants a good honest wife. You don't have to be a beauty
but don't be plug-ugly either. Write to..."
or
"Healthy, settled widower, 57, cattle rancher,
2 children grown and gone, seeks mature
companionable woman for matrimony.
Requirements: good humor and good cooking. Contact..."
I used to wonder why they'd send back east
for a woman when the west had been
pretty well settled by then.
And then I'd think about Frenchville,
a place with not a lot of people
where everybody knew everybody else,
and figgered maybe what these men wanted
was a touch of the unfamiliar.
The more I thought about it, the stronger
the urge to pick up and go grew on me.
I kept on readin' the paper and one day saw this:
"30-year-old bachelor who doesn't want to be one
looking for an adventurous young lady with an eye to matrimony.
Let's exchange words and a photograph and get acquainted.
Maybe you'll come west and help me grow wheat."
His name was Robert Keyes.
I can't tell you why this partic'lar entry
caught my attention; I just had a feelin'.
The next day I fixed myself up
to look as good as I could and went downtown
to see if Judge Cray would set up his camera
and take a decent picture of me.
The only photograph I had was the one
Fred and I posed for, all dressed up
in our wedding clothes, a few days before the ceremony.
The judge was happy to have an excuse
to get away from his desk
and in a couple of days sent me a photo.
I looked at it and thought, "Well, I'm no ravin' beauty
but I wouldn't scare paint off walls either."
And straightaway I sat down
and wrote Robert Keyes a bit about me,
stuck the picture in an envelope with the letter
and mailed it off to Park River, North Dakota.
Long story short again, Robert Keyes -
though soon I was callin' him Rob -
sent me a photo in return.
I liked what I saw, liked what he wrote,
and he must've felt the same,
'cause in three months time,
during which we wrote to each other regular,
he asked me to come out to marry him.
Although she pretended not to be,
I'm sure the widow was glad to see me go,
and Ma was all for it, though she said
she'd miss me wicked fierce.
I figgered Park River, North Dakota
couldn't be any colder or lonelier
than Frenchville, Maine,
so I took the money I had comin'
after Fred died and bought my train ticket.
We had a good life, we did,
out here in the Red River Valley.
Rob was hardworkin' and kind
and never pushed me to have a family.
I was grateful; I couldn't face that again
after losing m'first.
Oh, we had our troubles -
plagues of hoppers that ate the wheat sprouts
soon's they come out of the ground
and drought and the time the river flooded
and swamped near half our crop.
Somehow we always managed.
Besides Ma, the only thing I missed
back in Maine was those lace curtains
at the widow's house.
They made everything look so pretty,
and sometimes, lookin' out the windows
of our ranch house, I'd wish I had some there
instead of the checked calico I'd run up myself
on a secondhand sewin' machine.
And sometimes, though I'd never say so,
I got tired of seein' nothin' but farmland
without a tree in sight 'cept the Duchess apple
Rob stuck in the front yard so I could make pie.
That man did love his apple pie.
One day when I burnt my hand
takin' bread out of the oven
and dropped a bucket of eggs
when I turned my ankle comin' back
from the henhouse
and the sky turned black
and the rain just bucketed down
I threw myself into the parlor rocker
and began to cry every bit as fierce
as the sky was rainin'.
Rob came in soakin' wet while I was still bawlin'
and badgered me to tell him what was wrong.
How could I, when I wasn't sure myself,
except I was overtired in the body
with all the day-after-day work
and a little homesick in the mind for green trees and hills.
"Can't fix it if I don't know what's broke," he said.
"Come on, Allie, don't let's have secrets after all this time."
I didn't want to complain about the work,
'cause Rob worked harder than any three men I'd ever known,
or make him think I was homesick 'cause I wasn't, not really,
so I said, "I wish I had some lace curtains for the parlor."
Well, he busted out laughin' and gave me a hug
that left me pretty near wet as he was.
"You're cryin' over curtains?"
Rob tilted my face up and laughed again.
"You know we had good harvests last couple years,
all you had to do was say somethin' and you woulda had 'em."
And don't think the next time he had to go to Fargo for supplies
Rob didn't come back with a set of lace curtains,
pretty, dainty little things that I hung not in the parlor
but in the adjoinin' windows of our bedroom.
That's the kind of man he was.
I had a bucketful of heartbreak and disappointment in my life,
same as lots of folks, but in the end I was a lucky woman,
and that's all you really need to know.
That's how I want to be remembered.
~ 2015 RC deWinter
This painting has been FEATURED in
Art From The Past
ART - It Is Good For You
Arts Fantastic World
Artwork Manipulated
Beauty
Images That Excite You
Night In Art
Out Of The Ordinary
Premium FAA Artists
T100 Appreciating Quality Artworks From All Mediums
Tell Tall Tales
The World We See
Waiting Room Art
Thanks to the group hosts for their encouragement and support.
curtains, window, house, lace, lamplight, exterior, fabric, farmhouse, architecture, lace curtains, night, rustic, vintage, wall, wall art, deWinter, RC deWinter
Uploaded
April 9th, 2015
Statistics
Viewed 728 Times - Last Visitor from New York, NY on 04/25/2024 at 3:52 AM
Embed
Share
Sales Sheet
Comments (20)
Karen Adams
Such a simple image beautifully done....with so much meaning that can be conveyed! We see in and out through these simple things....or let others see in or out....love the thoughts you have stirred!....vf