Ardis Diary

 I haven't written in here for a very long time.  I reached a point where I felt like I was either complaining, or discussing the same topics, ad-nauseum.  Mother Bee caught a miserable chest complaint.  Now Billy has also gained it.  He's not the same bright, can't sit still for two minutes, Billy.  He is quiet most of the time.  He has lost weight.  His skin is pallid.  The worst is that his spirit seems so repressed.  It is as though the illness has swallowed the brightness of his soul.  

He has now joined mother Bee in the wagon.  Sometimes he rides the little mule that Papa Aidan brought with us.  The mule is almost as thin as Billy.  

It has become miserably hot.  There is no rain.  The edibles that the animals usually eat have dried up and drifted away.  So now...the animals are hungry, the humans are hungry, and I fear that some of the animals will wind up being somebodies meal.  Papa Aidan has become even more watchful over our few remaining animals.  I can tell that he recognizes the danger.  We had a dozen laying hens when we began our journey.  There are only three left.  We ate six of the others, and three mysteriously disappeared from their pen on the side of the wagon during the night.  I'm surprised that the other chickens didn't create such a fuss that it awakened all of us.  I guess we sleep so soundly after a day filled with exertion we didn't even awaken for that.

There is still no word from Tom.  I try to believe that if there were anyway to send us word, he would.  I don't really believe that.  I think the iea of going to war is so thrilling to him that he gives very little thought to those of us on this miserable journey.  He left us behind when we so desperately needed him.  I fear that I will be bitter about that for the the rest of our married life, if he ever does return.

 I'm not going to call my diary Felicia anymore.  It's a childish idea and there is nothing left of childishness on this desperate, hot, miserable, nauseating track.  It WOULD help if I had joy for the end of the trail to urge me on.  I don't know this Astoria that we're traveling to.  It sounds frightening more than anything else.  I'm pretty certain that it's not a safe place to homestead and raise a family.  What on earth possessed Tom to buy a pig in a poke?  He had no idea what our property would be, beyond "One hundred acres of the most fertile earth God ever created."  That was the promotion that he succumbed to.  For a man with virtually no imagination Tom can be ridiculously gullible.  

I met the salesman once.  I immediately felt that something was wrong about him.  I couldn't give an exact description of what I thought was wrong.  That meant that Tom dismissed me.  He didn't even try to look at the idea from my point of view.  Honestly, if he repeats one more time that "Women don't have the intellect to deal with finances..." there may be another war....in our home!"  Is it a civil war when a wife goes to battle with her husband?

Ardis Diary

 A new life?  I felt the movement today.  It was very faint, like the whispery movements of a butterfly.  How marvelous is this...that a man and a woman can come together to create another human being.  It is hoped that the creation would happen in love.  I can not say that love was the overwhelming feeling during my experience.  Tom makes love as he dances, with very little of passion and imagination.  I was always pleased when the experience was done.  

Well I must end that topic.  Billy can sometimes be sneaky.  I would not put it past him to try to find this diary and read what I have said.  This subject is far too advanced for him.  He still believes that somehow a baby mysteriously arrives.  He has no concept of the connection of man and woman that creates the child, nor the experience of carrying that child for nine months.

Mother Bee is also expecting.  She is not doing well with her pregnancy.  She is naturally quite thin.  Sick from her pregnancy she is almost gaunt.  Aidan is very excited at the idea of having another child.  At the same time I can see his concern about her as she vomits on and off all day long.  

I feel unsettled, my stomach roils but never to the point of vomit.  Sometimes I wish that I could throw up.  Surely I would feel relief for a short while after?  Actually, Mother Bee's biliousness doesn't seem changed when she does throw up.  She rides in the wagon most of the time now.  I don't think the oxen feel any difference when she is in the wagon.  Her weight is quite negligible to those noble creatures.

I try to do most of the chores so that Mother Bee can rest.  I did not tell anyone that I was expecting.  One day Father Aidan asked me about my pregnancy.  I was truly startled.  I didn't know how he could possibly have found out.  He assured me that he only knew from watching Mother Bee's symptoms during pregnancy.  He is such a sensitive, intuitive man.  I wish his son was more like him, and less like Mother Bee.

That's a terrible thing to say Leticia.  I should not put that in writing.  Mother Bee is just so negative, so much of the time.  She hasn't an ounce of imagination.  Life, to her, seems to be one long string of chores to be completed in an efficient, timely manner.  Sometimes it is more than I can bear.  I sometimes run as fast and as far as I can.  Then I come back more slowly to the plodding line of oxen who obediently follow our direction.

I plod just like the oxen most of the time.  It feels as though this journey will never end.  Day in and day out we perform the same chores, build a fire, make breakfast, or lunch, or dinner.  Oh, I forgot to mention, gather buffalo leavings to start the fires with.  I never in my wildest imagination ever thought that I would be gathering poop from another creature to make a fire.  This substance must be dried to get the fire burning.  I will not ever miss this particular chore at journey's end.  

Journey's end?  Sigh...will this journey EVER end?  I must end this missive dear Leticia.  Today is a day for washing our worn out, patched beyond recognition clothes. 

Ardis Diary

Tonight a different spirit was felt among all of us, the weary travelers.  One man plays the violin, a woman brought her treasured cello, another fellow plays the harmonica.  They had been practicing together in the evenings for the last week or so.  I was privileged to watch one of their practices.  I sketched the experience.  It was delightful to watch.  The cellist is so serious as she plays, the fiddler laughs and smiles endlessly, the harmonica player is a combination of the two.  Sometimes in a lively, spirited rendition he stamps his foot in a rhythmic tattoo.  Even though his mouth is thoroughly engaged in playing a song he still will smile around it.  It's the most interesting thing.

 Tonight they played and people danced.  I danced with Billy and Papa Aidan.  I was acutely aware of my husband's absence.  Mother Bee says that she doesn't care for the frivolity of dancing.  When she was dancing with Papa Aidan, I noticed that she couldn't keep a smile from her face.  She frequently burst into laughter.  This relief from daily, seemingly endless travel to Oregon was much needed.  At the same time, as I took my place underneath the wagon for rest, I was desperately aware of my lack.  

Why did Tom believe that a battle was more important than helping his family achieve this goal that was his alone?  I tried not to be bitter when Tom sold my parents home and land without even consulting me.  He said, "It never crossed my mind.  As  your husband, I am solely responsible for the financial details of our marriage.  Women do not have sufficient intellect to attend to such duties."  At that moment I sincerely contemplated attacking my husband.  He sold my birthright, MY birthright without even a consideration for me.  I certainly had no desire to travel this endless, miserable trek.  Uncertainty lies at the end of our journey. 

What will this place, Astoria, be?  I have heard stories in penny dreadfuls about men being shanghaied, kidnapped and sold as slaves.  It might be years before their family has any idea what happened to them.  They just disappear.  Some of them never return.  

Today, I'm going to sketch a picture of Tom. This picture will be a bit different than the usual.  Instead of making his face classically handsome, which it certainly is, I'm going to show him with a secret smirk.  He will somehow convey the selfishness of his soul on that face.  I suspect that it will help me somehow to make peace with the irony of my situation.  I'm on a trip to a place that I never wished to go.  My birthright was sold without my permission or knowledge.  The person who put me in this dilemma, LEFT, to fight, what he termed, "A glorious battle."  I know very little of the world, but I know that there is nothing glorious about men killing strangers, some men in THIS battle are family, but most wars involve total strangers killing and wounding each other.

 Sigh....I promised myself that I wouldn't again envision such grim thoughts.  It just helps me to have a safe place for my musings.  I certainly will never share with my in-laws these negative thoughts about their son.  Mother Bee would never even listen to a negative word about "Her Thomas," as she lovingly calls him.  Papa Aidan loves his son deeply.  I would not trouble him with these ideas.  Small brother Billy?  To him Tom is a hero of Scottish nobility.  I would never rob him of this ideal.

 So it is to you Letitia that I bare my soul.  Even though I gave my diary this name, it feels as though I'm chatting with one of my beloved friends that I left behind in Tennessee.  Thank you for listening.    Once again, I must spare my lantern from its kerosene usage.

Ardis Diary

 I awoke with my heart racing.  I turned to snuggle into Tom...only Tom wasn't there.  It was just me, alone, under the wagon.  I heard a wolf howling, that's what awakened me.  It took me a very long time to go back to sleep.  I try to protect myself by putting up things between me and the outside world.  I stack wood, or layer rocks that I've found during the day.  It might not save me but at least it would give me a slight chance of awakening before I'm attacked.  

I'm writing now in broad daylight.  I'm supposed to be eating my lunch.  I can eat my lunch while I walk.  That is what we do each and everyday, we walk, then we walk, and when we're sick of walking, we walk some more.  It's hot now, dusty, and an annoying wind often blows the dirt directly into my face as I walk endlessly.  

I have tried to repair the soles of my shoes.  I used some old newspapers when holes formed.  That didn't last for long.  So I tried ripping up an old dress and creating pads that I put on the inside of my shoes.  That worked the best, but finally the sole was so worn that the pad wouldn't stay in the shoe.  Finally I took the leather tops of my shoes, I turned them upside down so that I was walking on the side of the shoe.  I tied the two sides of the shoe together so that one side was on the bottom, when that wore out, I turned the last leather side to the bottom and tied it to my feet with the laces that had been in the shoes.  That worked for awhile.  NOW?  There is no leather left.  Even the rawhide ties wore out.  The ground is parched with heat.  My feet swelled.  Then they crack open and bled.  It was awful to look behind myself and see a trail of blood.  Finally, my feet are as hard and parched as the leather shoes that I used to wear.  I'm grateful.  Having my feet so leathery helps with the pain of step after step after weary step!

Ah Tom, where are you?  Are your shoes worn out?  Have you signed up with some union army unit?  We're from the south, but we are religiously against slavery.  We believe that ALL men WERE created equal.  That includes men, and women of all colors.  Why should we benefit from the sweat and toil of these souls?  Slavery needs to end.  

It's just hard for me to embrace war.  I do not believe that there is anything glorious about the action of young men fighting, wounding, and killing total strangers.  If they were to meet in a social gathering they might even become friends.  Instead, father is fighting his sons, brother is against brother, and the entire thing is a colossal waste of good men, horses, and life.  Instead of fighting each other, these men should be working to support their families.  They should be watching their children grow up, and helping those children to be loved, and strong.  Old men decide that we need to fight each other.  They sit in great comfortable offices and strategize.  They move the men around on the battlefield as though it was a game of chess.  A remarkable difference?  Nobody dies in a game of chess...NOT ONE SOUL!!

There is the cowbell.  That means that we walk on...and on....and on...and on!  When I reach Astoria, I will ride a horse anywhere I go.  I may never walk anywhere ever again!!!.

Ardis. Diary

 I can't bear it!!  How will I continue to put one foot after another and keep walking towards the unknown without my husband?  I married Tom because of a promise that he made to my parents as they lay dying.  I love Tom, but not in the magical feelings of romance novels that I read.  I sneaked those books into the barn and read.  My parents would have been scandalized.  Just watching my parents relationship showed me how a marriage should be.  They were absolutely besotted with another.  I think they both died because they simply couldn't imagine any life without the other.  They had known each other for most of their lives.  They came to Tennessee as a newly married couple.  The only asset they carried with them was their love for each other and ten dollars.   

My mother told me that I would grow to love Tom.  Tom and I are so very different.  He is reserved. I am not. He has very definite opinions about a few things, but simply isn't even curious about anything else.  Our conversations are thence extremely limited.  I must admit that one of his favorite subjects bores me to tears.  Oh how he loves discussing the best types of seeds for the best harvest rewards.  He studies the soil obsessively.  

The only time that I found this interesting conversation was one time when he was plowing and dug up a beautiful statue.  It was carved from stone.  He gave the statue to me.  I treasure it.  It has a woman kneeling looking up towards the heaven that she is imploring.  

Tom simply said, "She's probably praying to some heathen God."  I don't believe in Tom's limited judgmental God.  His God only recognizes the pious Christian.  I was taught that even if we call our God a different name, chances are that we are still praying to the same Father in Heaven.  I was also taught that we are all brothers and sisters, children of the same God.  Tom is biased against anybody that is a different color, a different religion, or just plain different.  

I feel badly as I reread what I just wrote.  I'm going to now explain the things that endears Tom to me.  When my parents became desperately ill, Tom was at our home everyday doing all that he could to help me care for them.  He loved my parents as well as he loved his own flesh and blood.  When my parents died, I had nowhere to go, no family left, except in impossibly far away Scotland.  Somehow Tom convinced folks to watch over me for the last two years before I was old enough to marry him.  I often think that he married me out of a sense of duty to my dead parents more than any type of love.  Love is a most practical thing to Tom.  He cares for the duties of marriage in the same way that he cares for the duties of farm life.  I thought that lovemaking would be....well...more pleasurable.  Okay, no more of that conversation.  It makes me very uncomfortable. 

When I discovered that Tom was actually leaving to go fight in a war that has nothing to do with us?  I was furious.  Then I was desperate.  Finally I gave up.  Tom is the most determined human that I've ever met.  In other words stubborn!  He drives me crazy sometimes with his unwillingness to be flexible or see anything from other than one viewpoint.  Sigh.

I did realize that I do love Tom when I realized that I may never see him again.  He could actually fight and die in this dreadful war.  I can't believe that anybody thinks that it's acceptable to own another human, regardless of their skin color.  They have the same emotions, the same bodies, their skin is just a prettier color.  Tom and I do share this belief.  We think that it's unconscionable to profit from the sweat and labor of others with no remuneration.  

Tom has spent his life listening to tales of brave Scottish warriors.  His dad told him bedtime stories from Scottish history.  I fear that Tom went to sleep with battles painting the colors of his dreams.  This influence drives him to the idea that war is glorious.  Warriors are men that face their fears with bravery.  Oh Tom, why did you have to leave?

I'm beyond weary and tomorrow I will have to get up at the dawn of the new day.  I'm alone now under the wagon.  I start at every howl of coyotes or wolves.  I have a lamp here with me.  I must blow it out.  I fear that I'm being greedy with my use of our limited kerosene.  Good night.

My Sheros

Ardis, Sarah, Celeste, Angela, Rose, Lily, Beth, Tapestry.  These are the names of my seven Sheros.  Each book is stand alone, except for Tapestry.  A tapestry is a wall hanging made by weaving threads in and out to create a lovely picture.  I am doing the same thing in a literary fashion.  Tapestry will finish smoothing out the rough edges of my series.

Journal entries for all of the women will be posted on this blog.  This will help you to peek into the coming attractions of my series.  Each of the women named above will have their own book in the series.  I did not write my series in a chronological order.  I am a rather random writer.  I first began a book that I'm just now getting around to publishing.  Her story intrigued me and began first one book, then two, then three, on and on to eight.

I have published two books, Beth, and Celeste, of the Drifting Anchor Ranch.  You can see above that they were not written in chronological order.  I'm now working to rectify that.

I'm excited for everyone to meet Ardis, a lovely pioneer woman who travels from Tennessee to Calkington only to find that the land they had purchased was in the middle of the Columbia river.  She travels with a new husband and his family.  Her husband is excited by the idea of fighting in the American Civil War which breaks out shortly after they begin their journey.  He leaves, and Ardis travels on with her in-laws.  Shortly before they reach their goal, all of Ardis' family drowns in a rushing river.

Sarah is a Native American.  She is The Leader of The People, a tribe that lives on the top of Meleshe, a mountain top.  To protect their value system they are a closed society.  I have created some language for this group.  It exists only in my head.  It has been very enjoyable to design a vocal method of communication.

Please stay tuned for coming attractions. 

Celeste's Journal

Sunshine filled my soul and the day.  It's marvelous to sit in my sewing shop and design and sew dresses.  I actually wore a sweater as I went about my work yesterday.  It's June but the weather in our small town never gets very hot.

Lucille Bond came in today with her three girls, Willy, Bertie, and Alexa.  Lucille once told me that she had thought all three of them were going to be sons.  She only had boy names chosen for them.  The oldest would be Willard Jr., then Robert, and Alexander.  When they were born she shifted their male name to a female, Wilhelmina Elizabeth, Roberta Rae, and Alexandra Alice.  Personally, I think that she handled the situation in a very clever fashion.

Lucille told me about an organization in Astoria that she's involved with.  It's called The International Order of Good Templars.  It began in 1851 as an organization for temperance.  I remember the Dragon Lady, Madame LeRouge hated the entire idea.  Her customers liked a combination of drinking, and women.  Some of those men had been at sea for long periods of time.  This gave them a huge appetite for these activities.  I have never understood why a man who is completely drunk thought that made them better lovers.  Instead it made them clumsy and fumbling.

This is an organization that I will never join.  I stay as far away from that part of Astoria as I can.  I have no desire to remember my experiences in that town.  I'm happy to report that it does seem to be improving.  It still has a long way to go.

Astoria has been so wicked that men will walk up behind somebody in the daylight and knock them out.  They awaken only to find that they are miles out to sea.  Their poor family will not know what happened to them.  Sometimes it takes them as long as six years to return.  Sometimes they never return.  It's a horrifying thing to treat human beings as mere beasts of burden.

Lucille prides herself on being a model citizen.  Unfortunately, in her mind, that means that she has the right to judge everyone else.  Her feelings of insecurity drive her to judgement of others.  She lost her entire family coming to Calkington, and married at a very young age.  She had very little opportunity for education.  She taught herself to speak English in a more educated manner.  I will admit that I admire her discipline, and her many talents.  I know full well that she could be sewing beautiful clothes on her own.  Somehow it makes her feel better about herself to have someone else perform that assignment.  I'm grateful for her business.  I just wish that she didn't treat me so poorly.

I'm weary.  I hear sleep calling me.  Bonne nuit.