Prairie Widow by Harold Bakst Read Free Book Online Page B

Walter, she went to a comer, faced it, clasped a Bible she had brought, and she looked toward the pole rafters. “Lord, God…” she began to whisper.
    Jennifer couldn’t stand what was happening. She burst from her dugout. She ran to the well, whose sides were built up of prairie sod, and there she collapsed near the bucket and began to sob. Then she, too, began to whisper, “Please, God.
    But when Jennifer next looked toward the dugout, she saw, through tear-filled eyes, the somber figure of Lucy Baker standing within the doorway.
    â€œNo, no. Go back in,” choked Jennifer.
    But Lucy did not go back in. Followed closely by a sniffling Nancy Camp, who held her Bible in one hand and a handkerchief in the other, Lucy proceeded solemnly toward Jennifer.

Chapter Four
Bridal Greetings
    There was no preacher in Four Corners, so Seth Baker, at his wife’s behest, improvised the words over Walter Vandermeer’s grave, “Father, who art in heaven, um, hallowed be thy name, accept unto your bosom our friend, Walter Vandermeer…”
    Twenty or so neighbors had come to the burial on Grave’s Hill, which was really nothing more than a slight rise in the land, and they clustered in a spot freshly scythed around the rectangular pit. They listened patiently to Seth’s words, which were competing with a warm, gentle wind.
    â€œWalter had not been among us long before he was taken away, but, ah, he was a good man…”
    Though they hadn’t known Walter very well, a few of the women were crying. Some of the younger children hung restlessly onto their mothers, while a couple of men anxiously rotated their broad-brimmed hats in their hands or bit their lips nervously, anxious to get back to their fields. Nancy Camp stood alongside her husband, a tall, wiry man whose Adam’s apple slid up and down as he and his wife read from their Bible, moving their lips silently. Every so often, Nancy dabbed a tear from her cheek with a handkerchief.
    Jennifer, meanwhile, in a dark cotton dress, propped herself against the short, upright post that was Lucy Baker, who had also gathered to her side Peter and Emma. Her own three children stood opposite her across the grave.
    â€œâ€¦ We do not always pretend to understand your ways, O Lord, but we accept them as wise.”
    At one point, above Seth’s voice and the wind, could be heard the whistle of a meadowlark, which was perched several yards away on a tilted headstone, seemingly enjoying the warm summer day. Then, in a yellow burst, the bird flew down the little, partly shaven hill and skimmed across the grass tops.
    â€œâ€¦ We beseech you to take kindly to Walter’s wife, Jennifer, and his two children, Peter and Emma, and that you, um, show mercy, amen.”
    And everyone repeated, “Amen.”
    At that, two neighbors—middle-aged brothers who shared a homestead—stepped forward and began to shovel dirt into the hole, covering Walter Vandermeer, who was wrapped in canvass only, wood being too scarce and too precious to use for coffins. Behind the two brothers, waiting to be put in place, lay a headstone from Franz Hoffmann’s store, its inscription facing the sky.
    Lucy Baker gave Jennifer a stoic hug around the shoulder with one arm.
    â€œI hate to leave him here,” said Jennifer weakly. “He ought to be home.”
    â€œHe is home,” assured Lucy. “Look eastward. This ground is one with Ohio.”
    The other neighbors approached Jennifer, mostly a couple at a time, to say how sorry they were and to hold her hands in theirs. Then, on the way to their wagons, some of them stopped by other graves to pay respects to loved ones, and cut back any grasses that had sprouted around the marker. It was only in this desultory manner that the cemetery was kept up, and there was a comer or two that had been rein-vaded by the prairie grasses, which swallowed up entire headstones.
    With most of the