time in this town for such a thing, thank goodness.”
Captain Early said nothing for a moment, then, “That was the week John and I went upstate to look for geodes. We took the train to Hannibal and then trekked up to Keokuk.”
Mrs. Early said, “You should see the boxes of rocks in the cellar. I’m sure there are diamonds in there somewhere.”
Captain Early said, “I sometimes feel as though I remember everything.” He said this in such a somber voice that Lavinia immediately added, “Margaret has such a good habit of looking on the bright side of things.”
This was when Mrs. Early, who was sitting catty-corner to her, momentarily put her hand over Margaret’s and gave a squeeze. The older woman’s hand was warm, and she said, “That is a personal quality that I’ve always appreciated.”
But it was not a lively supper. Captain Early went back to Washington soon after, and Margaret had the distinct feeling of staring into her own future, the same feeling she had had so long ago, at the Fourth of July parade where John Gentry had fallen off his chair and Robert Bell had seen his possibilities expand. The play had begun. The customary ending was promised. Her own role was to say her lines sincerely and with appropriate feeling. At her age, she thought, she should know what those feelings were, but she did not.
As if to answer this question, Lavinia made sure Margaret was ever helpful that winter and spring. If people were down with any sort of fever or pleurisy or rheumatism and couldn’t do for themselves, Margaret was the one who carried the baked beans to the house or did the extra housework or went uptown to the store for provisions, especially if the ill person was a maiden aunt or a widow or an impoverished woman of any sort. She quilted at the church with ladies who had time on their hands, making rough comforters to be handed out to those who couldn’t afford their own. Lavinia’s constant topic of conversation was the misfortunes of these women, and the greatest of these was finding themselves alone and unprotected in a world everyone acknowledged to be unsympathetic and even dangerous. Every time Margaret settled into a chair and opened a book, Lavinia wondered aloud whether Beatrice needed a hand, and maybe Margaret should walk over there (“The fields are quite hard with this frost”) and stay for a few days, doing laundry. Margaret’s future, as a result, seemed to narrow to a point, and the point was this room, where they were knitting in air so cold that they could see their breath by the lamplight.
Mrs. Early sent them things: dishes of brandied plums or a mincemeat pie. She sent them oranges once, and books, of course, and special tea from Ceylon or China. She came by and read them parts of the captain’s letters, which they could see were lengthy and neatly written. He had a good command of language, and liked to walk, so she often read them his descriptions of his perambulations in Washington and Virginia—“Beloved Mother, Here in Washington, the winter is well advanced, and spring at hand. I went with Wilson Sunday into Rock Creek Park. The grass was up, in the tenderest threadlike shoots, and the air was fragrant with moisture rising from the earth as we strode across it. Wilson showed me where he uncovered a hand-ax and some spear points, demonstrating to all and sundry (or those willing to accept the truth) that America has been peopled for many thousands of years, just as Greece and Egypt have. The evidence is, of course, fascinating, but I could not keep my eyes or my mind off the dogwood, which is in flower, and the violets and toadflax.” Margaret had to admit that there was something wonderfully elegant about such outings, something far, far away from the sighs and heavy fabrics of the quilting circle.
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition opened later in the spring, and everything in the world was changed by it, but Lavinia and Margaret did not make their first visit until the beginning of June.
Truly, it was not like anything Margaret ever saw before or afterward. It had been promised that they would get the whole world into one end of Forest Park, and it seemed as though they succeeded. Dora spent the entire summer at the exposition, supposedly writing about it for various papers near and far, but really, she told Margaret,