One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus Read Free Book Online Page B

since we roon away from there when we were just ten years old.”
    Now Margaret stands straight again and scans the other passengers with a certain predatory interest. Her gaze comes to rest on the woman sitting across the aisle from us—a woman named Daisy Lovelace; I have only spoken to her briefly, but I know that she is a Southerner and has the distinct look of ruined gentry about her. She holds an ancient dirty white French poodle on her lap. The dog’s hair is stained red around its butt and muzzle, and around its rheumy, leaking eyes.
    “Wouldn’t ’appen to ’ ave a bit of tobacco, on ye, Missy, would ya now?” Margaret asks her.
    “Ah’m afraid naught”, says the woman in a slow drawl, and in not a particularly friendly tone.
    “ Loovely little dog, you’ve got there,” says Margaret, sliding into the seat beside the Southerner. “What’s its name, if you don’t mind me askin’?” The twin’s insinuating manner is transparent; it is clear that she is not interested in the woman’s dog.
    Ignoring her, the Lovelace woman sets her dog down on the floor between their feet. “You go on now an’ make teetee, Feeern Loueeese ,” she coos to it in an accent as thick as cane molasses, “Go wan now sweet haart . You make teetee for Momma.” And the wretched little creature totters stiffly up the aisle sniffling and snorting, finally squatting to pee by a vacant seat.
    “Fern Louise, is it then?” says Meggie. “Isn’t that a grand name, Susie?”
    “ Loovely , Meggie,” Susan says. “A loovely little dog.”
    Still ignoring them, the Southern woman pulls a small silver flask from her purse and takes a quick sip, which act is of great interest to the twins.
    “Is that whiskey you’ve got there, Missy?” Margaret asks.
    “No, it is naught whiskey,” says the woman coolly. “It is mah nuurve medicine, doctor’s order, and no , you may not have a taste of it.”
    The twins have met their match with this one I can see!
    Now here comes my friend, Gretchen Fathauer, bulling her way down the aisle of the train, swinging her arms and singing some Swiss folksong in a robust voice. Gretchen never fails to cheer us all up. She is a big-hearted, enthusiastic soul—a large, boisterous, buxom rosy-cheeked lass who looks like she might be able to spawn single-handedly all the babes that the Cheyenne nation might require.
    By now we all know Gretchen’s history almost as well as our own: Her family were immigrants from Switzerland, who settled on the upland prairie west of Chicago to farm wheat when Gretchen was a girl. But the family farm failed after a series of bad harvests caused by harsh winters, blight, and insect attack, and Gretchen was forced to leave home as a young woman and seek employment in the city. She found work as a domestic with the McCormick family—yes, the very same—Father’s dear friend Cyrus McCormick, who invented the reaper … isn’t it odd, Hortense, to think that we probably visited the McCormicks in our youth at the same time that Gretchen was employed there—but of course we would never have paid any attention to the bovine Swiss chambermaid.
    Gretchen longed to have a family of her own and one day she answered an advertisement in the Tribune seeking “mail-order” brides for western settlers. She posted her application and several months later was notified that she had been paired with a homesteader from Oklahoma territory. Her intended was to meet her at the train station in St. Louis on an appointed day, and convey her to her new home. Gretchen gave notice to the McCormicks and two weeks later boarded the train to St. Louis. But alas, although she has a heart of gold, Gretchen is terribly plain … indeed, I must confess that she is rather more than plain, to the extent that one of the less kind members of our expedition has referred to the poor dear as “Miss Potato Face” … and even those more charitable among us must admit that her countenance does have a