Manroot (6 page)

“
Did you make a wish?” he teased; it was the sort of thing he would have said to a child.

“
No,” she lied.

In their silence he felt the old numbness begin.
His eyes misted and he mourned for the other William, the one he had lost, the one who would have wished on a star. This one, the one who was left, had no idea what to wish for.

An unfamiliar anger rose within him. He felt stupid
– he had allowed the mask to slip. What was he doing standing out here in the middle of the night with an ignorant hotel maid discussing the heavens?

“
That’s all. I don’t require anything else,” he said sharply.

Katherine started.
His abruptness made her stumble as she re-entered the room.

“
Goodnight, sir,” she managed to mumble.

“
Wait,” he said. He came into the room, avoided looking at her, fumbled in the pocket of his coat, and held out the silver dollar to her.

She shrank back from him, and he saw her face.
Where it had been eager and open, it was now closed with hurt. He was not a cruel man; he felt he had hurt enough people in his life, and a small kindness would cost him nothing.

On impulse, he reached for the strong brown hand, and he bent forward, kissed her palm, which smelled of fresh lemon, and placed the silver dollar there, the gesture
an apology.

Seeing the hurt look on her face an idea came to him; he wanted to please her.
“Would you like a book on astronomy? I think you should have one, since you enjoy the stars so much. I’ll bring you one next week. Goodnight, Kathy. Thank you.”

Kat
hy
. She kept the name in her mind; she felt it suited her well.

When she awoke on Saturday, he had already gone; his key hung in the kitchen.
Frieda prepared the sacks. Today they were going out to gather wild fruits for herbs or teas. The mason jars were lined up on the sideboard, indicating how sure they were of finding ample things to preserve.

“
Mr. Taylor’s real partial to maypops. There’s a spot where I used to find a whole hedgerow of ‘em…and this morning there was a frost right before sun-up. I’m sure we’ll find plenty.”

Frieda brought out a large wool cape for the girl, who she knew didn
’t own a coat. “It’s okay to keep it,” she offered. “It belonged to the maid before Sally – she left it.”

Grateful, Katherine took the cape, and they started out on t
he beautiful cold sunny morning.

Frieda enjoyed talking, Katherine liked listening, so they made a comfortable pair.

“In New Mexico we didn’t have any maypops,” Katherine volunteered. “What are they like?”

“
Well, they go by a lot of different names. Some call them the passion flower, as they have the stickers like the nails of Jesus when He was crucified, but most call ‘em wild apricots, or granadilla. I call ‘em maypops. Now, keep a close eye.”

Katherine didn
’t know what to look for, so she just followed Frieda, enjoying the beautiful morning.

“
Do you suppose you could call me Kathy?”

“
Why, child, I suppose I could. I never knew you’d want to be called that, but probably as not I’d forget as I’m used to saying Katherine by now.”

The woods were ali
ve with small creatures skittering among the fallen leaves searching for nuts and berries as the feel of winter was here. In a grove of bushes Frieda spotted them. “There they are – the maypops!” They went to the thicket where the vine grew ten to twelve feet high, climbing over another bush. Just a few showy lavender flowers were left; on the rest of the vine the flowers had already turned to fruit. The wild apricots, about the size of an egg, had turned yellow from the frost, but some were still pulpy yellow-green. “Try for the yellow ones,” Frieda instructed.

They pulled and yanked on the vines and searched among the three-lobed indented leaves for the maypops.
They had soon filled their sacks. “That’s enough,” Frieda said. “Let’s save room. I’m really needin’ some swamp rose.”

They turned direction and headed towards the river.

Enjoying her role as teacher, Frieda instructed: “You can usually find swamp rose by creeks or rivers… We still have a little left in jelly. I’m thinking we need it this winter for the teas.”

Katherine loved
Missouri and the abundant fields and woods, so different from the wind-blown, barren landscape where she had grown up. She felt the wonder of nature here, it was so generous. She followed Frieda eagerly; she had already learned so much, and as they walked Frieda told her of the uses for swamp rose. It was used to make tea, jam, jelly, soup – and rose sugar. She talked of how, in the spring, they’d find the roses and dip the petals in whiskey and batter and fry them, then coat them in sugar…a true delicacy. On the banks of Kiefer Creek they saw the rosebushes which grew to about six feet. The leaves were dry from the recent frost, but the rosehips were plentiful – the small, ball-like fruit left where the fragrant roses had been. They filled their sacks and, well satisfied with their day, they started back.

“
There,” Frieda pointed. “But we don’t have room. There, that’s the ginseng – the manroot. Why, when I was a girl, my daddy used to go sang-hunting every fall, and he even tried growing it as a crop, but the cultivated isn’t as good as the wild. The buyers…they don’t hardly want the cultivated.” She paused and knelt down. “You can tell it, it’s different to any other plant. See how gold the leaves look? There ain’t anything in the world that has that color. Look, Katherine – study it so’s you’ll know it. It grow in dark places like this…manroot don’t like the sun. It never grows taller than two feet and it has a cluster of five leaves.” Frieda touched the leaves with a wonder. “Some folks when I was little dreamed of making a fortune with it. My daddy knew a man that did. He hunted and hunted, pert near cleared out all the hollows, and they said he moved to a big house in Chicago.”

“
It sounds like treasure-hunting!”

“
Oh it is, child. It is.”

They enjoyed the crisp, cold October afternoon.
Katherine felt a quiet happiness, for the beauty of the Missouri landscape always made her heart quicken. They walked slowly now, their sacks heavy.

Slightly out of breath, Frieda stopped and looked around.
“I suppose we could take a short cut.” She glanced down at her stout stockings and reasoned she was wearing her old shoes; mud couldn’t hurt them any.

“
I know one that’ll save us about a quarter of a mile,” she suggested, and Katherine followed her, leaving the worn path as they cut through the woods. They went slower, as they had to avoid treading on the wildflowers and the rocks.

“
Oh my!” Katherine looked down and saw the lovely violets crushed beneath her feet.

“
What is it?” Frieda asked, stopping and putting down her sack.

“
I’ve crushed them,” Katherine said, gesturing at the tiny flowers.

“
It’s okay; they’re hardy. They’ll spring back up in no time.”

Katherine knelt down and gently coaxed the lea
ves up. “My mother loved violets,” she said quietly. “She had some once in a big pot on the window, but they died. Sun was too hot in New Mexico.”

Katherine
’s reference to her mother made Frieda pause. She pushed away her impatience.

“
Violets like the damp – they’ll be okay.”

Unwilling to leave her destruction, Katherine asked, “
Maybe I could take ‘em – nurse ‘em back?”

“
Okay, but it’s getting late,” Frieda said, handing her the small trowel.

They were glad to get back to the warmth of the kitchen
.

Mr. Taylor and the Missus were in
St. Louis for the day, and since the Judge had left and the women didn’t have to cook, they prepared sandwiches of cheese on thick bread with strawberry jam and ate the fresh mulberries that Bruce had picked yesterday from the bushes behind the orchard.

Frieda separated the apricots into two separate piles.
“These we’ll make jelly with, and these we’ll dry for crystallized apricots.”

They peeled the maypops, cut them in half and took out the seed.
Frieda prepared a pot with water, and from the icebox she took out the lime Mr. Taylor had brought her from St. Louis. She squeezed the lime juice into the pot and added the sliced maypops. “That’s all we do for now. We let them stand for twelve hours, then we boil them in weak alum water, then reboil in clear. We drain them, put in white sugar, three-quarters of a pound for each pound of apricots. We let them stand again…boil them one more time, flavor with ginger root and dry ‘em. It takes two days. Crystallized apricots is one of Mr. Taylor’s favorites.”

They prepared the second group using the seeds as well as the pulp.
After boiling the maypops for thirty minutes, they strained them through cheesecloth, then reboiled them, adding one pint of sugar to each pint of juice, until the mixture jelled. Then they cooled it and sealed it into jars with wax on top.

Katherine broke the tip of her pencil and with her teeth she nibbled the wood until she had a new lead…
for she was busy writing; she had copied down every recipe of Frieda’s since she had been here. This was very flattering to the older woman.

“
You just sit, child. Them rosehips is nothing to it.” Frieda dropped the plump knobs into boiling water, and covered the pot. “Now tomorrow we strain it, bring it to a boil and add two tablespoons of vinegar. Then we bottle it. It’s a good tonic for just about anything!”

Katherine closed her notebook.
“Monday I’m going to Bailey’s general store. I need another book – this one’s full.”

“
Well, it’s no good wasting money. Notebook’ll probably cost you a dime,” Frieda warned, and she looked through the tablet, searching it for a blank page.

“
I know, but I’ve got a silver dollar.”

“
You do? Where did you get a silver dollar?” Frieda asked, a worried frown coming over her face.

“
The Judge…he tipped me a dollar.”

“
Hum,” Frieda warned. “Nothing in this world is free. Mind you watch him. He’s handsome and young enough – who’d think of him as a judge? Yes, you watch him. I dare say you’re lucky none of them men has grabbed you yet and slung you across their bed and had their way with you.”

“
No, the Judge isn’t like that. He wouldn’t do nothing like that,” Katherine protested.

“
Oh no? You’ve seen them fancy women he’s brought here – he’s no saint, he’s just like the others. I know about men like him. I was a young girl once, a working maid like you; and I’ve seen enough of them, those fancy men. They don’t need to sling a girl in their beds, oh no. The only weapon they need to ruin you is their golden tongue…it glides smooth as honey.”

Katherine was surprised at her anger, but Frieda could only remember Anna and know that what she said was true.

“Not me,” Katherine assured her. “That would never happen to me.”

Frieda laughed.
“You’re a child in a woman’s body…you’ll see. I tell you – mind yourself, and don’t listen to no golden tongue. I suppose your father’s never told you about men?”

Katherine flushed at the mention of his name.
Yes, in a way, Jesse had told her about men.

That ni
ght, the girl could not sleep. She needed to tell someone of the wonder that had been the Judge. She had touched his fingers; he had told her private things; he had kissed her palm. She went over every detail in her mind again and again.
‘Call me William.’
She didn’t dare, but now, alone, she could say it, to hear how it sounded.
‘William…William.’
She whispered his name over and over in the dark. She turned and tossed in her bed. She remembered his words,
‘What do you do when you’re troubled?’

It was too far, and too late, and too cold for her to walk to The Crossroads and sit by the river, but she could go out and look at the stars.

She threw the cape over her shoulders and went out into the yard and the clear autumn sky. The cold barely touched her, as her body raged with an unknown fever.

She walked to the mound, the hay-covered hill, where she lay down and searched the sky.
Very faintly, she made out Taurus the Bull, and there were her favorites…the Seven Sisters. She squinted her eyes and saw things; she loved them, that cluster. She imagined these daughters of Atlas to be beautiful girls glittering there in white, running across the dark skies to meet their lovers.

Her hand touched her breast.
She remembered the birthmark. She smoothed her hand near it, caressingly. Would he someday see the birthmark and marvel that hers matched his? The touch of her fingers made her nipple harden and she closed her eyes tightly and conjured up his face, his eyes stark blue and his smile…God, how she loved it. It seemed that her imagination brought him here, and her hand now touching the mound of Venus…it was him…it was her…doing a shameful thing.
It was him…
Her breath caught in her throat and she ran back into her room, knelt and said three ‘Hail Marys.’