The Mother Who Stayed by Laura Furman

Author:Laura Furman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2011-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

THIRD TRIO

The Blue Birds Come Today

Plum Creek

The Mother Who Stayed

The Blue Birds Come Today

On a bright clear morning in November 1874, Hiram Rathbun traveled across the Hudson to the blacksmith in Schuylerville. Most of the work on his farm Hiram did himself, but the anvil called for the skill of the smith, and so he set off down the mountain.

While he was at the blacksmith’s, Hiram chose a pattern for a wrought-iron fence for the family graveyard on the Intervale, the road that ran past his brother Lyman’s farm. The twisted uprights were divided by three lozenges, the first bulging out at the sides, the middle a simple oval, the topmost echoing the angle of the first and ending in a fleur-de-lis. The graves were on a rise above the Intervale so Hiram passed them every time he went to his brother’s farm.

The oldest graves were those of Hiram’s grandparents, Paul and Patience, who were born in the last century when the country was still a colony. The newer graves were those of Hiram’s children.

Baby Lyman’s gravestone bore his name and one date, 1862. Albert E. was dead at age four and Eunicy before she reached that age. Annie Sophia’s time was recorded carefully: 16 years, 7 months, 3 days. The second Albert and his brother Almont were together in a grave; they were part of a set of triplets.

In spring and summer, Hiram’s wife, Mary Ann, and their youngest children set flowers in the graveyard. Alfred, the third of the triplets, was ten this year. The second Annie was fifteen, and the second Eunicy, the youngest and the last of Hiram’s children, was nine.

The fence would be ready in the spring.

By the time the restored anvil was in the wagon and Hiram reversing his morning journey, the sky was as gray as the winter awaiting him, and cold rain fell in sheets. It was all he could do to get across the river. The water below him and the water from above seemed so much the same that he feared Doll would misstep and tip them both—and wagon and anvil—into the river. Safe on the other side, he knew that whether or not he and Doll found shelter, they wouldn’t be home that night.

Warren Sherman was closest. When Hiram arrived, Warren was in the barnyard, finishing up chores. He was someone Hiram had known all his life, a bachelor Hiram spoke to twice a year at most. They were the same age, fifty-one, but their lives had taken different paths; Hiram was the father of sixteen children, ten living. With his older sons, Hiram farmed five hundred acres to Warren’s one hundred.

Warren welcomed Hiram and shared with him the thick stew made from a chicken he’d killed that morning. They ate in Warren’s kitchen, where bunches of herbs and other plants were hung to dry. Warren, like Hiram’s wife, Mary Ann, had a way with arrangement, keeping his dishes and cups in good order on the shelves, smallest to largest, left to right.

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