Sarah, Plain and Tall

  Dedication

  For old friends, dear friends—

  DICK AND WENDY PUFF,

  ALLISON AND DEREK

  Contents

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  Excerpt from Skylark

  1

  Excerpt from Caleb’s Story

  1

  Excerpt from More Perfect than the Moon

  1

  Excerpt from Grandfather’s Dance

  1

  About the Author

  Also by Patricia MacLachlan

  Back Ads

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  “Did Mama sing every day?” asked Caleb. “Every-single-day?” He sat close to the fire, his chin in his hand. It was dusk, and the dogs lay beside him on the warm hearthstones.

  “Every-single-day,” I told him for the second time this week. For the twentieth time this month. The hundredth time this year? And the past few years?

  “And did Papa sing, too?”

  “Yes. Papa sang, too. Don’t get so close, Caleb. You’ll heat up.”

  He pushed his chair back. It made a hollow scraping sound on the hearthstones, and the dogs stirred. Lottie, small and black, wagged her tail and lifted her head. Nick slept on.

  I turned the bread dough over and over on the marble slab on the kitchen table.

  “Well, Papa doesn’t sing anymore,” said Caleb very softly. A log broke apart and crackled in the fireplace. He looked up at me. “What did I look like when I was born?”

  “You didn’t have any clothes on,” I told him.

  “I know that,” he said.

  “You looked like this.” I held the bread dough up in a round pale ball.

  “I had hair,” said Caleb seriously.

  “Not enough to talk about,” I said.

  “And she named me Caleb,” he went on, filling in the old familiar story.

  “I would have named you Troublesome,” I said, making Caleb smile.

  “And Mama handed me to you in the yellow blanket and said . . .” He waited for me to finish the story. “And said . . . ?”

  I sighed. “And Mama said, ‘Isn’t he beautiful, Anna?’”

  “And I was,” Caleb finished.

  Caleb thought the story was over, and I didn’t tell him what I had really thought. He was homely and plain, and he had a terrible holler and a horrid smell. But these were not the worst of him. Mama died the next morning. That was the worst thing about Caleb.

  “Isn’t he beautiful, Anna?” Her last words to me. I had gone to bed thinking how wretched he looked. And I forgot to say good night.

  I wiped my hands on my apron and went to the window. Outside, the prairie reached out and touched the places where the sky came down. Though winter was nearly over, there were patches of snow and ice everywhere. I looked at the long dirt road that crawled across the plains, remembering the morning that Mama had died, cruel and sunny. They had come for her in a wagon and taken her away to be buried. And then the cousins and aunts and uncles had come and tried to fill up the house. But they couldn’t.

  Slowly, one by one, they left. And then the days seemed long and dark like winter days, even though it wasn’t winter. And Papa didn’t sing.

  Isn’t he beautiful, Anna?

  No, Mama.

  It was hard to think of Caleb as beautiful. It took three whole days for me to love him, sitting in the chair by the fire, Papa washing up the supper dishes, Caleb’s tiny hand brushing my cheek. And a smile. It was the smile, I know.

  “Can you remember her songs?” asked Caleb. “Mama’s songs?”

  I turned from the window. “No. Only that she sang about flowers and birds. Sometimes about the moon at nighttime.”

  Caleb reached down and touched Lottie’s head.

  “Maybe,” he said, his voice low, “if you remember the songs, then I might remember her, too.”

  My eyes widened and tears came. Then the door opened and wind blew in with Papa, and I went to stir the stew. Papa put his arms around me and put his nose in my hair.

  “Nice soapy smell, that stew,” he said.

  I laughed. “That’s my hair.”

  Caleb came over and threw his arms around Papa’s neck and hung down as Papa swung him back and forth, and the dogs sat up.

  “Cold in town,” said Papa. “And Jack was feisty.” Jack was Papa’s horse that he’d raised from a colt. “Rascal,” murmured Papa, smiling, because no matter what Jack did Papa loved him.

  I spooned up the stew and lighted the oil lamp and we ate with the dogs crowding under the table, hoping for spills or handouts.

  Papa might not have told us about Sarah that night if Caleb hadn’t asked him the question. After the dishes were cleared and washed and Papa was filling the tin pail with ashes, Caleb spoke up. It wasn’t a question, really.

  “You don’t sing anymore,” he said. He said it harshly. Not because he meant to, but because he had been thinking of it for so long. “Why?” he asked more gently.

  Slowly Papa straightened up. There was a long silence, and the dogs looked up, wondering at it.

  “I’ve forgotten the old songs,” said Papa quietly. He sat down. “But maybe there’s a way to remember them.” He looked up at us.

  “How?” asked Caleb eagerly.

  Papa leaned back in the chair. “I’ve placed an advertisement in the newspapers. For help.”

  “You mean a housekeeper?” I asked, surprised.

  Caleb and I looked at each other and burst out laughing, remembering Hilly, our old housekeeper. She was round and slow and shuffling. She snored in a high whistle at night, like a teakettle, and let the fire go out.

  “No,” said Papa slowly. “Not a housekeeper.” He paused. “A wife.”

  Caleb stared at Papa. “A wife? You mean a mother?”

  Nick slid his face onto Papa’s lap and Papa stroked his ears.

  “That, too,” said Papa. “Like Maggie.”

  Matthew, our neighbor to the south, had written to ask for a wife and mother for his children. And Maggie had come from Ten-nessee. Her hair was the color of turnips and she laughed.

  Papa reached into his pocket and unfolded a letter written on white paper. “And I have received an answer.” Papa read to us:

  “Dear Mr. Jacob Witting,

  “I am Sarah Wheaton from Maine as you will see from my letter. I am answering your advertisement. I have never been married, though I have been asked. I have lived with an older brother, William, who is about to be married. His wife-to-be is young and energetic.

  “I have always loved to live by the sea, but at this time I feel a move is necessary. And the truth is, the sea is as far east as I can go. My choice, as you can see, is limited. This should not be taken as an insult. I am strong and I work hard and I am willing to travel. But I am not mild mannered. If you should still care to write, I would be interested in your children and about where you live. And you.

  “Very truly yours,

  “Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton

  “P.S. Do you have opinions on cats? I have one.”

  No one spoke when Papa finished the letter. He kept looking at it in his hands, reading it over to himself. Finally I turned my head a bit to sneak a look at Caleb. He was smiling. I smiled too.

  “One thing,” I said in the quiet of the room.

  “What’s that?” asked Papa, looking up.

  I put my arm around Caleb.

  “Ask her if she sings,” I said.

  2

  Caleb and Papa and I wrote let
ters to Sarah, and before the ice and snow had melted from the fields, we all received answers. Mine came first.

  Dear Anna,

  Yes, I can braid hair and I can make stew and bake bread, though I prefer to build bookshelves and paint.

  My favorite colors are the colors of the sea, blue and gray and green, depending on the weather. My brother William is a fisherman, and he tells me that when he is in the middle of a fog-bound sea the water is a color for which there is no name. He catches flounder and sea bass and bluefish. Sometimes he sees whales. And birds, too, of course. I am enclosing a book of sea birds so you will see what William and I see every day.

  Very truly yours,

  Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton

  Caleb read and read the letter so many times that the ink began to run and the folds tore. He read the book about sea birds over and over.

  “Do you think she’ll come?” asked Caleb. “And will she stay? What if she thinks we are loud and pesky?”

  “You are loud and pesky,” I told him. But I was worried, too. Sarah loved the sea, I could tell. Maybe she wouldn’t leave there after all to come where there were fields and grass and sky and not much else.

  “What if she comes and doesn’t like our house?” Caleb asked. “I told her it was small. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her it was small.”

  “Hush, Caleb. Hush.”

  Caleb’s letter came soon after, with a picture of a cat drawn on the envelope.

  Dear Caleb,

  My cat’s name is Seal because she is gray like the seals that swim offshore in Maine. She is glad that Lottie and Nick send their greetings. She likes dogs most of the time. She says their footprints are much larger than hers (which she is enclosing in return).

  Your house sounds lovely, even though it is far out in the country with no close neighbors. My house is tall and the shingles are gray because of the salt from the sea. There are roses nearby.

  Yes, I do like small rooms sometimes. Yes, I can keep a fire going at night. I do not know if I snore. Seal has never told me.

  Very truly yours,

  Sarah Elisabeth

  “Did you really ask her about fires and snoring?” I asked, amazed.

  “I wished to know,” Caleb said.

  He kept the letter with him, reading it in the barn and in the fields and by the cow pond. And always in bed at night.

  One morning, early, Papa and Caleb and I were cleaning out the horse stalls and putting down new bedding. Papa stopped suddenly and leaned on his pitchfork.

  “Sarah has said she will come for a month’s time if we wish her to,” he said, his voice loud in the dark barn. “To see how it is. Just to see.”

  Caleb stood by the stall door and folded his arms across his chest.

  “I think,” he began. Then, “I think,” he said slowly, “that it would be good—to say yes,” he finished in a rush.

  Papa looked at me.

  “I say yes,” I told him, grinning.

  “Yes,” said Papa. “Then yes it is.”

  And the three of us, all smiling, went to work again.

  The next day Papa went to town to mail his letter to Sarah. It was rainy for days, and the clouds followed. The house was cool and damp and quiet. Once I set four places at the table, then caught myself and put the extra plate away. Three lambs were born, one with a black face. And then Papa’s letter came. It was very short.

  Dear Jacob,

  I will come by train. I will wear a yellow bonnet. I am plain and tall.

  Sarah

  “What’s that?” asked Caleb excitedly, peering over Papa’s shoulder. He pointed. “There, written at the bottom of the letter.”

  Papa read it to himself. Then he smiled, holding up the letter for us to see.

  Tell them I sing was all it said.

  3

  Sarah came in the spring. She came through green grass fields that bloomed with Indian paintbrush, red and orange, and blue-eyed grass.

  Papa got up early for the long day’s trip to the train and back. He brushed his hair so slick and shiny that Caleb laughed. He wore a clean blue shirt, and a belt instead of suspenders.

  He fed and watered the horses, talking to them as he hitched them up to the wagon. Old Bess, calm and kind; Jack, wild-eyed, reaching over to nip Bess on the neck.

  “Clear day, Bess,” said Papa, rubbing her nose.

  “Settle down, Jack.” He leaned his head on Jack.

  And then Papa drove off along the dirt road to fetch Sarah. Papa’s new wife. Maybe. Maybe our new mother.

  Gophers ran back and forth across the road, stopping to stand up and watch the wagon. Far off in a field a woodchuck ate and listened. Ate and listened.

  Caleb and I did our chores without talking. We shoveled out the stalls and laid down new hay. We fed the sheep. We swept and straightened and carried wood and water. And then our chores were done.

  Caleb pulled on my shirt.

  “Is my face clean?” he asked. “Can my face be too clean?” He looked alarmed.

  “No, your face is clean but not too clean,” I said.

  Caleb slipped his hand into mine as we stood on the porch, watching the road. He was afraid.

  “Will she be nice?” he asked. “Like Maggie?”

  “Sarah will be nice,” I told him.

  “How far away is Maine?” he asked.

  “You know how far. Far away, by the sea.”

  “Will Sarah bring some sea?” he asked.

  “No, you cannot bring the sea.”

  The sheep ran in the field, and far off the cows moved slowly to the pond, like turtles.

  “Will she like us?” asked Caleb very softly.

  I watched a marsh hawk wheel down behind the barn.

  He looked up at me.

  “Of course she will like us.” He answered his own question. “We are nice,” he added, making me smile.

  We waited and watched. I rocked on the porch and Caleb rolled a marble on the wood floor. Back and forth. Back and forth. The marble was blue.

  We saw the dust from the wagon first, rising above the road, above the heads of Jack and Old Bess. Caleb climbed up onto the porch roof and shaded his eyes.

  “A bonnet!” he cried. “I see a yellow bonnet!”

  The dogs came out from under the porch, ears up, their eyes on the cloud of dust bringing Sarah. The wagon passed the fenced field, and the cows and sheep looked up, too. It rounded the windmill and the barn and the windbreak of Russian olive that Mama had planted long ago. Nick began to bark, then Lottie, and the wagon clattered into the yard and stopped by the steps.

  “Hush,” said Papa to the dogs.

  And it was quiet.

  Sarah stepped down from the wagon, a cloth bag in her hand. She reached up and took off her yellow bonnet, smoothing back her brown hair into a bun. She was plain and tall.

  “Did you bring some sea?” cried Caleb beside me.

  “Something from the sea,” said Sarah, smiling. “And me.” She turned and lifted a black case from the wagon. “And Seal, too.”

  Carefully she opened the case, and Seal, gray with white feet, stepped out. Lottie lay down, her head on her paws, staring. Nick leaned down to sniff. Then he lay down, too.

  “The cat will be good in the barn,” said Papa. “For mice.”

  Sarah smiled. “She will be good in the house, too.”

  Sarah took Caleb’s hand, then mine. Her hands were large and rough. She gave Caleb a shell—a moon snail, she called it—that was curled and smelled of salt.

  “The gulls fly high and drop the shells on the rocks below,” she told Caleb. “When the shell is broken, they eat what is inside.”

  “That is very smart,” said Caleb.

  “For you, Anna,” said Sarah, “a sea stone.”

  And she gave me the smoothest and whitest stone I had ever seen.

  “The sea washes over and over and around the stone, rolling it until it is round and perfect.”

  “That is very smart, too,�
� said Caleb. He looked up at Sarah. “We do not have the sea here.”

  Sarah turned and looked out over the plains.

  “No,” she said. “There is no sea here. But the land rolls a little like the sea.”

  My father did not see her look, but I did. And I knew that Caleb had seen it, too. Sarah was not smiling. Sarah was already lonely. In a month’s time the preacher might come to marry Sarah and Papa. And a month was a long time. Time enough for her to change her mind and leave us.

  Papa took Sarah’s bags inside, where her room was ready with a quilt on the bed and blue flax dried in a vase on the night table.

  Seal stretched and made a small cat sound. I watched her circle the dogs and sniff the air. Caleb came out and stood beside me.

  “When will we sing?” he whispered.

  I shook my head, turning the white stone over and over in my hand. I wished everything was as perfect as the stone. I wished that Papa and Caleb and I were perfect for Sarah. I wished we had a sea of our own.

  4

  The dogs loved Sarah first. Lottie slept beside her bed, curled in a soft circle, and Nick leaned his face on the covers in the morning, watching for the first sign that Sarah was awake. No one knew where Seal slept. Seal was a roamer.

  Sarah’s collection of shells sat on the windowsill.

  “A scallop,” she told us, picking up the shells one by one, “a sea clam, an oyster, a razor clam. And a conch shell. If you put it to your ear you can hear the sea.” She put it to Caleb’s ear, then mine. Papa listened, too. Then Sarah listened once more, with a look so sad and far away that Caleb leaned against me.

  “At least Sarah can hear the sea,” he whispered.

  Papa was quiet and shy with Sarah, and so was I. But Caleb talked to Sarah from morning until the light left the sky.

  “Where are you going?” he asked. “To do what?”

  “To pick flowers,” said Sarah. “I’ll hang some of them upside down and dry them so they’ll keep some color. And we can have flowers all winter long.”