SusieQ's Place

(Part III of this story ended with Rebecca rushing to tell Julia, who was resting on the porch, that the twins were missing. )

"The twins. They've disappeared, Julia. I can't find them anywhere." Rebecca gushed.

Of all the children, Julia found the twins the hardest to manage. They were happy little boys infected with rich imaginations that enabled them to craft a make believe world for themselves that could keep them busy for hours. But they were too inquisitive. They were curious about everything and they were not afraid of anything. As if that wasn't bad enough, they had this uncanny talent for disappearing from sight in the blink of an eye. "There isn't a nook or a cranny anywhere on this farm that those boys have not tried to investigate." Julia told David one night as she vented her frustration with the twins.

Julia had been especially uneasy about the twins ever since that one incident that happened the week before. So when Rebecca told her the twins had disappeared, that incident leaped into Julia's mind. At first she was weak from the adrenalin that coursed through her body. But soon she felt this boost of energy that reminded her of ice on her skin. She jumped to her feet. The Sears catalogue that had been in her lap dropped to the floor. "Quickly, Rebecca, go fetch David at the threshing machine and tell him to get to the pasture as fast as he can." She knew that David would understand.

"LOUISE." Julia shouted toward the kitchen. "Come quick and take the children." Louise hurried out of the kitchen and onto the porch. The two women exchanged a few words. "You stay here and Let ME go, Julia." Louise insisted. "No." Julia responded firmly, and she left.



Julia's heart was in her throat as she ran toward the pasture. How she wished Jacques was there. The dog seemed to know instinctively when to fill in for Julia and David and watch the twins when they could not. But shortly after that incident last week, he had taken off to be with his lady love for a while at the Boudreau farm and he had not returned yet.

Was it happening again? She asked herself. "Oh, God....please not again." She prayed. That frightening day the week before was in the forefront of Julia's mind now in vivid detail. David had gone to town that morning for supplies and had taken the oldest child with him. Rebecca was in the house with the other children except for the twins. They were outside with Julia. She herself was out in the garden hoeing a row of carrots and assuming that the twins were right behind her playing under the oak tree. All of a sudden she heard Jacques yipping incessantly in the distance.

Julia looked up and there were the twins just on the other side of the fence in the pasture and, what looked to be, only yards away from the bull. He was showing his muscled broadside to the twins which Julia knew was a sign that he would be turning any moment and charging the twins. She raced toward the pasture with the hoe still in her hands thinking she might have to use it to beat him off. As she got closer she could see that Jacques had placed himself in between the twins and the bull. He was yipping and dodging back and forth in front of the bull as if to distract him.

When she got to the twins , she quickly coaxed them under the fence to safety and then called to Jacques to come to her. The dog slipped under the fence but continued his yipping. The bull flared his nostrils and looked at Julia in a way that would haunt her dreams for years to come. She began to think he might try to bolt right through the fence. Slowly she moved the children to in back of her. She knew not to turn her back on the bull or move too quickly as this could incite him to charge. Slowly she walked the children backwards hoping to reach some kind of cover close by. But the bull's interest in Julia and her children waned suddenly and he turned and sauntered off as if nothing had ever happened.
That evening Julia and David sat on the edge of the twins' bed and talked to them. "Now I want you to promise never to go near the bull again." David said to them firmly as Julia plumped up their pillows. "But we want to ride him, Papa." They chimed in together. You would have thought that their freshly washed faces bronzed by the summer sun and exuding all their childlike glee might have inspired heaven to make the beast gentle enough for little boys to ride. You would have thought. Afterwards, as Julia and David sat at the dining room table sipping cups of coffee from what remained in the pot made that morning, Julia asked him once again to get rid of the bull. He agreed and said he would look for a buyer.

They had not had the bull that long, but from the start the bull had shown signs of aggression toward human beings. Fearing that he could hurt someone on the farm, Julia wanted David to get rid of the bull right away once they discovered this about him. He was supposed to be a good breeder though and, for that reason , David decided to keep him. "We will just have to teach the children to stay away from him." He had told Julia. But Julia knew that this was little more than wishful thinking, and she was right.

The clamor of the threshing machine had turned into a soft hum as threshing activities came to a halt. There would be no more threshing as long as the twins were unaccounted for. Threshing machines were dangerous back then with their long wide belts that could suddenly slip out of control. David had shut down the threshing machine before heading for the pasture along with some of the other men to look for the twins. It was shortly afterwards that Julia slipped, twisted her ankle, and fell to the ground.

Louise was holding the baby and watching with Marie and the other children from inside the fenced yard by the house. She saw Julia fall. "Oh, no, Marie. Look what's happened to Julia." She gasped. "I have to go to her. Here, Marie, you take little Phillip." Louise tried to hand the baby to her, but Marie backed away.

"Now you've gone and done it, Julia. You've gone and done it." Louise said as she helped Julia to her feet. "Let's get you over to this bench. And you stay here. I'll go hunt for the twins." Julia did not object. Instead she sat there in pain on the bench, while the minutes seemed to hang on forever, hoping the twins would show up by some miracle all of a sudden.


Louise went on to join Rebecca and a number of men who were combing the farm looking for the twins and calling out their names. "Leon......Leonelle." They would call. While David and some of the men were looking for the twins in the pasture, the others looked in the barn and its hay loft for them. They were looking in the carriage house, the chicken coop, the tool shed, the milk shed, the orchard, down by the creek, in the fields. They were looking for them everywhere always calling out their names. But they had not been able to find them yet.

When Julia married David and became a Catholic, she completely embraced his faith rich with all its religious symbols, its patron saints, blessed statues, holy medals, holy water. It was what she turned to in times of trouble when things seemed beyond human control. The winter before last everyone in the household had come down with the flu and she was too sick to cook and take care of them. With a raging fever, she pulled herself out of bed one day and went through the house with her vessel of holy water and sprinkled it everywhere. Everyone recovered. Was it a miracle? Who can say? What is a miracle anyway? Who can say?

Then there was the tornado. David was helping another farmer deliver a calf the day a tornado hit and cut a wide swath through the farmland in their area. It brought down trees and demolished barns and homes. Julia was home with the children by herself. When she noticed the stark stillness of the leaves on the trees that day and saw that foreboding clouds were starting to swarm in the darkening sky in the west, she grabbed the crucifix from off the wall and set it in the kitchen window. Then she gathered up the children and rushed them down into the cellar.

Except for the hickory tree that blew over and landed on the chicken coop, no one was hurt that day. Even the chickens came out of it unscathed.

And so it was as Julia sat on that bench after twisting her ankle and waited for word from David who was still looking for the twins in the pasture, that she reached into her pocket and pulled out her rosary beads and began to pray. Her eyes were closed and she was just beginning the second decade of the beads when she heard that familiar wonderful sounding "yip." It was Jacques. He was standing in front of her. He had come home.

Julia was a few yards away from the spring board when she heard that familiar wonderful sounding "giggle." Then she watched as one curly dark head popped up from inside the spring board followed by the other. It was the twins. They were safe. She kissed the rosary beads still in her hand and dropped them into her pocket. Her joy was so intense that she forgot about her twisted ankle and tried to run. She could not wait to wrap her arms around her boys.

Julia reached inside the spring board for them and pulled them toward her. She started kissing their faces, first one then the other. Over and over again she kissed their faces while she gushed in French "I love you. I love you." Finally, she heaved a sigh of welcomed relief. Then some thoughts began to cross her mind. Surely, she thought to herself, they had been able to hear everyone calling for them. So, she asked herself, why had they not answered. As glad as she was to find them and know they were safe, it was time for her to start asking questions.

"Everyone has been looking for you for a long time. Where have you been?" She asked them.

"Here." They answered pointing to the inside of the wagon.

"Did you know everyone was calling for you?"

"Oui."

"And you didn't answer?"

"Non."

"And why didn't you answer?" She folded her arms and waited for their response, but they said nothing.

"Mon enfants, je te parle (My children, I am speaking to you)."

The twins hung their heads, because they knew they should have answered when they were called. Julia put her hand over her mouth; she was fighting a grin. She tried to appear serious and shook a finger at them. Then she lifted them out of the spring board. "You march right into the house this very minute." She ordered, and she gave them a symbolic smack on their bottoms to send them off. They scampered toward the house. She rushed after them and gave them another smack on their bottoms adding, "And no pie for you today."

Before going into the house, Julia waved to Louise who was coming out of the barn at that moment. "You can call off the search, Louise." She yelled, "I found the twins and they are okay. Get word to David."

When Julia came into the house, she could hear singing in the living room. She walked through the dining room and into the living room where she found Marie down on the floor with her skirt hiked up to her knees singing and playing patty cake with little Phillip who,it was obvious, had taken to Marie. "Oh, Julia, I see you found the twins and they are safe. Thank the Lord." She said cheerfully as she rose and picked up Phillip from the floor. Her hair was mussed up. A good sum of it had come loose from her bun. It was obvious that Phillip had been interested in her hair and pursued that interest with gusto by grabbing a big handful of it.

"Julia, I was just thinking about something." Marie continued while cradling Phillip. She was indifferent to the hunk of hair that hung down on one side of her head. Julia found this indifference a refreshing departure from Marie's usual prissy self. "I was wondering.....well, would it be all right with you, Julia, if....um......I came by here maybe once a week, maybe more, and, uh ......well...um......helped you with the children? "

Julia opened her arms wide and embraced Marie warmly. "It would be a blessing, Marie." She replied.

Louise DuBois was a stout, matronly woman with a stern look and a commanding voice that could be heard a mile away when she gave it full rein. But she had a heart made of pure gold. She had no qualms about taking charge when the occasion called for it. That morning was an occasion that called for it.

Julia had managed to feed the men their breakfast before Louise got there, but she was close to exhaustion afterwards. Not a morsel of the breakfast meal remained that could go toward the midday meal coming up next. Work on the farm in those days was extremely hard. A farmer had to consume between 6,000 and 8,000 calories a day in order to have the energy needed to do the work. A large man might need to consume close to 10,000 calories a day.

Julia was just starting to clean off the table outside on the lawn when Louise pulled her spring board up to the ice house in back so that it would not be in the way. The two women had not seen each other for more than a month. Louise had been up north helping a niece with a new baby. "Yoo-hoo, Julia." Louise called as walked into the yard. Julia seemed listless to her.

After embracing her warmly, Louise pulled back and placed her hands squarely on Julia's shoulders. She tipped her head first to the left and then to the right as she studied Julia's face intently. Then she dropped her right hand and placed it on Julia's abdomen. "You're in the family way." She announced. Julia nodded yes. In those days pregnancy was referred to in delicate terms such as that.

In 1900 half the babies were delivered by doctors. The other half were delivered by midwives. Louise had been a midwife for over twenty years. She knew all the signs. Yet, it was not unusual back then to find a married woman of child bearing age pregnant. It was almost a given if her youngest child was a year old or more. Indeed, Julia went on to give birth to a boy, Armond, the following January in the dead of winter with the ground covered in lustrous snow and Louise present to assist in the birth.

"Morning sickness?" Louise asked as she started to gather up the stacks of dishes on the table.

Julia brought her apron up and wiped the sweat from her brow with it. "Almost all day I am sick and want to throw up. Everything tastes odd to me. I get tired easily." She replied.

"Let's get you in the house, child, and get your corset off. You need to rest a spell. And the children? Where are the children today? "

"My sister Rebecca is watching them. She's taken them down to the creek to look for crawfish."

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The Corset. It had been around for centuries. Although it often provided support for the mid section especially the back, its main purpose was to prepare the female figure to receive the fashion of the day. So, the corset form changed with the fashions.

A woman living in Julia's time wore her corset everyday just as today's woman wears her bra everyday. A woman back then hoed the garden in her corset. She did the laundry wearing it. She prepared the meals all corseted up. It may have been a matter of propriety to wear a corset and inappropriate, perhaps even seen as immoral by some, to go without one in public.

Regarding pregnancy, it was considered inappropriate, even immoral, to be seen in public if you were pregnant and showing. The longer a woman could wear a corset while pregnant and conceal that fact, the longer she could be seen in public before the baby came. But Louise advised Julia that day not to wear her corset during the pregnancy, because she had heard that there was a growing concern in the medical community that corseting up could harm the developing child in the womb. In fact there is reason to believe that some women, upon finding themselves pregnant back then and wishing they weren't, tightly laced their corsets in order to deliberately cause a miscarriage.

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"But there are chickens to cut up and fry, Louise." Julia said as she struggled with her corset.

"Now, never you mind about the chickens or anything else. I'll manage just fine in the kitchen without your help. You just rest."

"I don't feel right about leaving all that work to you, Louise."

"Lands sake, I'm fit as a fiddle. The Pelletier baby isn't due for 'nother week yet best I can figure and I'm free as a bird today. " Louise replied as she helped Julia get back into her dress.

With Louise close behind, Julia came down the steps and walked out onto the screened-in porch off the dining room. She eased into the rocker that David's mother had given her earlier in the summer. Julia had whitewashed it and set it on the porch in the corner by the hydrangea bushes.

"I stopped by the Boudreau farm on the way here and Zelia sent you a big pot of beef stew plus several loaves of bread for today's dinner meal." Louise said as she placed a small pillow behind Julia's head. "She said to tell you she's sorry she could not come here herself and lend a hand," her voice trailed off as she headed for the kitchen, "but her youngest is all a mess with poison ivy and her man is down on his back again with something."

"That was kind of her to send the stew." Julia called to her from the porch. "I'm sorry to hear about her man being down on his back again."

Louise chipped a few pieces of ice off the block of ice in the ice box. She drew water from the hand pump at the kitchen sink and carefully washed the saw dust off the chipped ice. Then she plopped the ice in a glass of water and walked back out to the porch with it. "Besides my pies, Julia, I brought along some of my pickled beets and a kettle of ham and beans too. Why, dinner is almost ready for the men."

Louise handed the glass of water to Julia and said, "This should cool you off right nicely." Tucked under her arm was a Sears, Roebuck catalogue she had grabbed off the table on her way through the dining room to the porch. "Here, Julia, look at this while you rest." She said as she handed over the catalogue to Julia.

In the evenings by the light of a kerosene lamp Julia would comb the pages of her Sears, Roebuck and look at everything a person could buy. Augers. Bailing wire. Oil chandeliers. Commodes. Divan couches. Chewing tobacco. Shaving soap. Plum pudding. Rolled oats. Vanilla extract. Chocolate. Men's dancing shoes. Ladies mufflers. Ladies ribbed drawers. Bustles. Buckles. Butcher's apron. And on and on. It was like touring a fantasy land of goods.

Julia wanted to take the twins to the new photographer in town to get their picture taken for their fourth birthday. So, she was particularly interested in what Sears, Roebuck had to offer in boys' clothing. She found an outfit for the boys which she favored. It was inspired by the Little Lord Fauntleroy fashions of a few years earlier. The shirt, or blouse, had a wide ruffled collar to it and long sleeves with ruffled cuffs. She decided upon a big floppy bow, too, in a red plaid for the boys that went under the collar and tied in front. At the time these bows were especially popular in America. Julia used her egg money to pay for the twins' outfits.

While Julia rested out on the porch, Louse busied herself in the kitchen finishing up some of the dishes Julia had started to prepare for the dinner meal. She glanced out the window at one point and then quickly called to Julia "Well would you look at who is comin' up the lane, Julia." She wiped her hands on her apron. "Sweet Lord, it is Marie Chouinard...and she's wearin' a hat of all things. Must be thinkin' it's Sunday."

Marie Chouinard was tall and thin with a mouth that rarely turned up at the corners and usually laid in a narrow abbreviated line right under her nose.

Whenever she spoke, the tip of her nose wiggled like a rabbit's nose. This made it difficult to take seriously whatever she was saying if you were looking right at her. Prim and proper, she was always snooping around looking for something that did not meet with her approval and she usually found plenty that did not meet with her approval. Despite Marie's shortcomings, Louise managed to get along with her and even liked her although at times Louise was forced to set her straight about certain things.

Louise rushed out the kitchen door to greet Marie who was struggling to carry two large wicker baskets. "What have you there, Marie?" Louise asked cheerfully.

"Oh, I thought Julia could use some spiced peaches and pound cakes for the men's meals." Marie replied then added snidely. "I don't suppose she's done much cookin' for the men with all those youngins runnin' round."

Louise shook her finger at Marie playfully, "Now Marie, let's not start that." She said. Louise knew where that was coming from. Marie had given birth to only one child, a boy, who died from pneumonia when he was three years old. That was twenty-five years ago. After the boy died, bitterness set in and never left Marie. It determined her attitude toward everything.

Julia was standing in the kitchen by the sink trying to wash some dishes when Marie walked in. "Oh, Marie, I am so happy to see you." She wiped her hands on her apron and went up to Marie. The two women embraced.

"Well, I know how hard it is to feed a bunch of farmers at harvest time, and I thought you could use some help Julia."

"What are you doing in here, Julia?" Louise squawked when she came through the kitchen door from outside. She set a basket down on the table. "You get right back out there on that porch." And she took Julia by the hand and led her through the dining room and back out onto the porch.

When she returned to the kitchen, she found Marie examining the curtains hanging in the kitchen window. "I wonder when the last time was that these were washed." She remarked as she fingered them.

Louise rolled her eyes and walked toward the sink. "Marie, help me wash up these dishes here, would you. And take off that hat, please."

The two women proceeded to work side by side at the long, trough-like sink covered in a sheet of metal. Marie leaned toward Louise and said quietly, "I see that Julia is not wearing her corset."

"Yes, that's true." Louise replied. "She's in the family way and exhausted right now. I advised her not to wear her corset anymore until after the baby is born. It could harm the baby, Marie. That's what the doctors are saying."

"I'm sorry, Louise. I try not to be judgmental, but...it is not right. It simply is not right. It is immoral, I do believe, to go without your corset in public." Marie replied smugly. "And here with all these men about on the farm today. When the other ladies hear about this, they will be shunning Julia for certain."

Louise began to vigorously pump the handle up and down on the hand pump up at the sink. Water gushed out. "MARIE," She bellowed as she pumped, "I'VE A GOOD MIND TO REMOVE MY CORSET THIS VERY MOMENT RIGHT HERE IN THIS VERY KITCHEN IN FRONT OF THIS VERY SINK. ....AND WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT?"

Marie stiffened as she stood back. Her face glowed red. "Huh,...well.....I never." She muttered.

Julia heard the commotion coming from the kitchen, but just about that time she saw Rebecca running up the road toward the house from the creek with the baby on her hip and Eugene and Albert close behind her.

Rebecca leaped onto the porch steps and swung open the screen door to the porch. "The twins. They've disappeared, Julia. I can't find them anywhere." She said breathlessly. Meanwhile the humming of the threshing machine in the distance could be heard.

To be continued....

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EPILOGUE:

I know everyone is eager to find out what happened to the twins, and I was hoping to reveal that in this installment, but it got too long and I ran out of mental energy. Next time, I promise you will find out.

Forever there has been a sisterhood of women to help each other out like these women were helping Julia. In any group of women, too, there is bound to be a Louise and bound to be a Marie. I am sure these stereotypical women existed in Julia's group of women back then.

In researching Sears and Roebuck, I found a site devoted to their 1902 catalogue. I was amazed by the variety of things that one could purchase through this catalogue. If you are interested, you can purchase a CD of the 1902 Sears Catalogue
Here

The following Wednesday Julia boarded the train for Vermont. Her heart broken, she waved a somber goodbye to her parents who stood on the platform outside the train station. The engine chugged along slowly at first then picked up speed. She felt so alone. Whenever she glanced at the strangers on the train, she saw no one but David. She caught herself sighing again and again. Wishing the world would disappear she closed her eyes and fell asleep for a while.

Julia loosened the strings of her purse and carefully reached inside. She pulled out a lace handkerchief that she had neatly folded earlier before she left home. She unfolded it and stared down at its content. It was the rose that David had given her. She had pressed it between pages of a book for a keepsake. He had picked it off one of the rose bushes on the Langlois farm the night of the square dance when they met for the first time. She closed her eyes and let the train rock her back and forth into a twilight state where she began to remember what it was like the first time she saw David.

Julia knew of him before she met him. She had heard that his first wife had died after giving birth to a son who survived. But she had never met David or seen him before that night. The moment she laid eyes on David that night she was smitten with him. He was a beautiful man. Tall. Muscular. He had strong features and the darkest of eyes.

Toward the end of the evening, David was smitten with Julia, too, by all indications. After a few dances, they had slipped away together from the crowd and the clatter. They found a moonlit path to walk along where they talked and talked to each other. Their courtship progressed rapidly after that first night.

Julia's parents were not pleased with her new suitor, because he was Catholic. But it was not until Julia started talking about becoming a Catholic herself so that she and David could marry that her parents decided to intervene and send her off to Vermont in order to separate the two.

After Julia arrived at her aunt's home in Vermont, a series of letters began to go back and forth between Julia and her father. Her letters always started with "My dearest Papa,..." and ended with "Your loving daughter, Julia." Letters from her father started and ended in a similar fashion. Then one day a money order arrived for Julia from her father with a letter instructing her to purchase a train ticket and come home. The issue was resolved. The quarrel was over. Julia had prevailed. She was free to become Catholic and marry her beloved David. She had her parents' blessings.

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When she reached for the jars of jam on a high shelf in her pantry, Julia was still deep in thought about Vermont and what had happened years ago. The sound of horses' hoofs hitting the ground outside in the farm yard as neighbor farmers started showing up to help David with the threshing distracted her from what she was doing. Suddenly a jar of jam too close to the shelf's edge toppled off and crashed to the floor below. "OH, NO!." Julie shouted.

"Mama?" One of the children said in a small worried voice. It was Leon. He and his twin Leonelle were standing in the doorway of the pantry. "Are you hurt, Mama?" He asked.

"Oh, my hearts of love. No, mama's not hurt." Julia replied warmly. "Come here to Mama." She bent down and kissed each of them directly on the mouth which was the custom in her family. Then she rose up and pulled them toward her and pressed them tightly against her body. "Mon beau enfants (My beautiful children)." She whispered as she thought of what could have happened years ago and what might not have ever come to be today.

(To be continued....)

Epilogue: It is true that Julia's parents sent her to Vermont to be with relatives after she expressed a desire to become a Catholic. They were Protestants even though they were French and had come from Quebec which should have made them Catholics.

The detective in me has concluded that Julia wanted to become a Catholic so that she and David could marry. The Catholic church would have been very strict about mixed marriages back then. Plus there would have been influence coming from David's Catholic family. I believe her parents were trying to separate her and David by sending her to Vermont hoping that the two would forget about each other. At least it is a romantic thought.

The fact that Julia returned home eventually and became a Catholic and married David suggests to me that some communication was taking place between Julia and her parents while she was in Vermont and that letters most likely flowed back and forth between them giving Julia an opportunity to change their minds.

And surely there was the rose that she pressed between pages of a book, the rose that David gave her.