"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows" - Helen Keller
The three girls sat huddled around the fire while Tully span her tale and they ate their crumpets and drank their chocolate and the light on the flames danced patterns upon their three pretty faces.
She glanced at Frances with a grin. "Wind was whippin' 'round, an' th' rain was peltin'," she explained, unusually talkative, but having a good time weaving a story. "Niniaba huna was real mad, an' tryin' ta set things right.
"He's a giant badger that lives in the sky." Frances put in.
"Really?!" gaped Arabella, wide eyed. Tully carried on.
"He saw Miss Frances out there all alone, an' he pushed down that tree ta protect her from th' deluge...an' he made sure I seen, so I could pull her out an' under th' stairs where it was safe."
"Ooooh, doesn't that sound lovely, Frances?" asked Arabella.
"It didn't feel so lovely at the time, but now, hearing it back..." the blind girl nodded.
Taking a sip of the cocoa, she savored that a moment before continuing. "She's real brave, didn't mind a whit that there was all that rain, an' spiders an' whatnot."
"SPIDERS!!!" Screamed Frances jumping up.
"AAAAHHH!" Screamed Arabella, jumping up, too.
"AAAAAAHHHH! SPIDERS!!!" they both screamed in unison.
"Why are you scared of spiders?!" asked Frances "I thought you grew up in a shack full of insects and creatures that kept coming in at night?!"
"I know! That's why I'm scared of spiders!!" Arabella yelped.
"At least you can see them coming!!" returned Frances.
Finally they both sat down again brushing their fronts down to knock off any imaginary spiders who might have run up their dresses while they'd both been screaming.
"Sorry Tully" said Frances.
"Yeah, w... we're scared of spiders." Arabella agreed.
"Don't even say it!" added Frances.
"Ah, no." Tully was amused by the other girls' reactions, but then, she spent enough time under stairs and boardwalks, and in the rafters of barns, that she didn't much mind the creatures. Most were harmless, especially if you left them alone. "Ain't th' bad ones out in this cold no-how. Black widders hide when it gets all wet like this."
She didn't mention that the wet tended to drive them inside, where it was dry! "Any of 'em bother ya, I'll put 'em outside for ya, don't mind none." Really, it was only the black widows you had to worry about, and there were ways to move those without getting bit.
Their little outburst hadn't distracted her from the sweet drink, and in short order her mug was empty, as was her plate. Not sure what to do next, she shifted uneasily in her chair. "Reckon I oughta be goin' now," she muttered, "I'll just put my clothes back on." Once she figured out what to do with the empty dishes so she could stand up!
"Everybody can feather their nest, but it's not just anybody that can lay an egg!"
"Ah, no." Tully was amused by the other girls' reactions, but then, she spent enough time under stairs and boardwalks, and in the rafters of barns, that she didn't much mind the creatures. Most were harmless, especially if you left them alone. "Ain't th' bad ones out in this cold no-how. Black widders hide when it gets all wet like this."
"I don't blame them!" shivered Frances, remembering the cold and wet she felt under the tree.
She didn't mention that the wet tended to drive them inside, where it was dry! "Any of 'em bother ya, I'll put 'em outside for ya, don't mind none." Really, it was only the black widows you had to worry about, and there were ways to move those without getting bit.
"Oh, that'd be just fine!" beamed Arabella, "I caint go anywhere near 'em, Frances has to try and catch 'em in a glass while I give her directions standin' on a chair." she revealed - an image that made the mind literally boggle.
Their little outburst hadn't distracted her from the sweet drink, and in short order her mug was empty, as was her plate. Not sure what to do next, she shifted uneasily in her chair. "Reckon I oughta be goin' now," she muttered, "I'll just put my clothes back on." Once she figured out what to do with the empty dishes so she could stand up!
"Oh no, please spend the night!" whined Frances, but Arabella, remembering how 'cornered' the waif had looked in the diner when she'd previously tried to 'force' her to stay at the shelter, took a different tack.
"Now now Frances" she chided "Miss Nevada's an outdoor sort of girl, she don't like cosy beds and comfy snug flannelette night dresses and hot baths and comin' down to a big breakfast of ham and eggs and biscuits and fresh creamery butter and hot steaming coffee with plenty of sugar and milk in it. She'd rather be out there sleepin' under a bush with with the bugs and the lice and the roaches, and the terna-mites, and the sand fleas, and the tater bugs, and the grub worms, and the stingarees, and the tarantulas, childs of the earth, the ticks and the blow-flies..."*
Frances sighed "Oh, Tully, if only you could give all o' that up, just fer one night, to protect me and Arabella from those dreadful spiders!"
* With thanks to Woody Guthrie
As she was fixing to leave Arabella started talking about how she would try to guide Frances in chasing down and trapping a spider while not really getting close to it. It had to be pretty entertaining, especially if the spider got away, so then they had to wonder all night where it was, and when it might appear!
But as she was fixing to leave, Frances asked her to stay, and she was actually inclined to agree. It was pretty nasty out, and even when the rain and wind stopped, it was going to be wet and muddy. But then Arabella spoke up, with her amazing list of reasons to stay, and then Frances tossed in her plea again...
"I reckon," she muttered, "I mean, them spiders might'a come in fer dry, an' someone has ta protect ya." Settling back in the chair, she shrugged, leaning to warm her hands by the fire. "But after that, I'm goin'." Arabella needed to know this wasn't a permanent arrangement!
"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows" - Helen Keller
"I reckon," she muttered, "I mean, them spiders might'a come in fer dry, an' someone has ta protect ya." Settling back in the chair, she shrugged, leaning to warm her hands by the fire.
"Oh I'm so glad." beamed Frances, staring off into the fire. It was hard to think that for her, she was staring off into the same old black nothingness as usual: or maybe she could 'see' the cheer giving warmth.
"But after that, I'm goin'." Arabella needed to know this wasn't a permanent arrangement!
"Sure, you can come and go as you please." shrugged Arabella with studied nonchalance.
There was a rule about not poking about in the past histories of their guests and Miss Mudd stuck to it: but instead taked about her own past, hoping to draw Tully into talking about her own.
"You know, this is the nicest place I ever lived, least as I can remember. I was a baby when my family got chased out of Monroe, so I don't know what that was like, but then I just lived in a tumble-down shack 'til last year. Then I lived in a wagon train fer the big long journey from The Clinch to The Stillwater, then I lived in a boarding house for a couple of hours in Whitefish before the whole thing went up in flames and the place collapsed on my head; then I lived in the saloon a space: that was all right 'cept so noisy and I had to get up so early to clean the oven and all of that... and now I'm here."
Frances looked like she wasn't listening - it was difficult to tell with her rolling eyes. But then she said.
"Just think, a year ago today, you were probably sitting in your little Clinch mountain home, thinking you would be living there for years and years to come. And now you're here." she said in a sort of dreamy spellbound voice.
Arabella stared into the flickering, dancing flames and nodded. "Yeah..."
"Heard some 'bout Whitefish," Tully said, "real bad there, like God was givin' 'em th' final judgement." Drawing her knees up to her chest, she gazed into the fire for a moment, letting the drama build just a bit as she waited to give Miss Arabella a dose of Miss Arabella. "Ya know, like them places in th' Bible, Sodom an' Gomorrah...all them wicked people that didn't pay no mind ta God's warnin'."
Not that she believed a word of that, any more than she believed there was a method to God's madness. Oh, she did believe in God, at least some, enough that she didn't think she'd make Him mad, so she could go to Heaven. But that didn't mean she understood His ways, nor thought that He was always watching out for her.
"Good thing, though," she continued, "that He chose a couple'a folks ta tell th' rest'a us ta listen when He warns us."
"Everybody can feather their nest, but it's not just anybody that can lay an egg!"
Tully got biblical about Whitefish, maybe not quite realising that she was in deep water with these two.
"Ya know, like them places in th' Bible, Sodom an' Gomorrah...all them wicked people that didn't pay no mind ta God's warnin'."
"And there came two angels to Sodom at even" intoned Frances, a slightly rapt look in her unseeing eyes, like when she quoted the bible she did see something.
"... and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them" completed Arabella.
Then the two of them said in unison "... and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground"
"Good thing, though," she continued, "that He chose a couple'a folks ta tell th' rest'a us ta listen when He warns us."
Francis nodded. "Oh Arabella, do you think we two are like the two Angels?"
Arabella shook her head "No I reckon we're like them two virgin daughters of Lot, what he offered to the mob to do with them what they would."
"I remember: 'do ye to them as is good in your eyes' " Frances knew the specific line.
"That means old Lot offered them up for the crowd to ravish if they let the Angels alone!" Arabella said, a little salacious glow in her eyes.
"Well the daughters escaped the destruction, but not Lot's wife. She looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt!" These two seemed to get a bit of a thrill from re-living some of the grimmer parts of the bible. That was probably why Arabella for sure loved the Old Testament best.
The Virginian girl looked meaningfully at the waif in their midst whom she had wanted to fish for some interesting past history, but now she had changed her mind.
"Guess sometimes it's not a good idea to look back, huh Tully?" she asked.
Tully glanced at the girl and shrugged. "Dunno. Gotta keep in mind all that passed so's ya can see bad when it's comin' for ya, an' run from it without lookin' back."
You learned from your mistakes, right? And keeping the past in the past just opened you up to repeating the same mistakes, or to being tricked in the same ways...She wasn't about to let anyone take advantage of her again, or to fall for tricks or promises.
"'Sides, I don't think God turns folks inta salt any more. Elsewise, there'd be folks-salt-statues everywhere, right?" Grinning, she glanced at her companions. "Is there a difference between statues an' pillars?"
"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows" - Helen Keller
Tully glanced at the girl and shrugged. "Dunno. Gotta keep in mind all that passed so's ya can see bad when it's comin' for ya, an' run from it without lookin' back."
Arabella looked at Tully in wonder "Oh, Tully, that's so philosophical" She realised that the scruffy scamp of a young woman possessed a homespun take on life that had no doubt helped her survive whatever had happened to her in the past.
"My life just seems so different now, though, than before. It feels like I was a completely different person before I came to Kalispell... sort of alone. Now I have people around me: friends." Frances uttered. This surprised Arabella a little: she'd sort of assumed that a life of blindness would seem sort of same-y: just the same ol' dreary blackness all the way through. But for Frances, each day of her life was so very different and new and interesting: different sounds and smells and conversations and warmth or coldness and, what drove most people mad about Arabella, a running commentary on what was going on and who was doing what, was actually, for her, a boon.
And the music. Always the music.
"Well, sure you have, honey. You got lots of friends" Arabella assured her, while holding up three fingers to Tully and rolling her eyes.
"'Sides, I don't think God turns folks inta salt any more. Elsewise, there'd be folks-salt-statues everywhere, right?" Grinning, she glanced at her companions. "Is there a difference between statues an' pillars?"
"Er... yeah!!" sighed Arabella "Statues is of people and animals and stuff, an pillars is just plain, like up an' down." She informed the itinerant waif.
"What if it's a statue of a pillar, though?" asked the blind girl.
"Oh Miss Frances Grimes, you are such a little clever clogs!" the Virginia girl laughed, and it wasn't clear if the accusation was meant as a condemnation or a compliment.
"Frances is so amazing clever, Tul', let me show you something!!" Arabella blurted, jumping up. She ran to a sideboard and came back carrying a large book which she opened and thrust toward Tully.
"Look at that page, feel it, nuthin' on there but bumps, right? Now, just you watch..." she took the volume over to Frances and deposited it in her lap. "Go on, show her!" Arabella yelped excitedly.
Frances brushed her hand gently over the top of the page. "Oh, the Bible, how wonderful!" she smiled, showing her peg-like little teeth. she ran her hand further down and started to read the verse that her living companion had chosen, translating the bumps of the 'New York Five Point' precursor to braille into words.
"... And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother... OH Arabella! Trust you to pick something like that!!" she said with exasperation while Arabella rolled around laughing.
"Let me pick something nicer" the blind girl said, feeling her way through. It wasn't a complete Bible, such a thing would take several volumes done in Five Point, but she found something more to her liking.
"Yes... proverbs... 'A man that hath friends must shew him self friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother."
Suddenly Arabella's tears of laugher turned to those of tenderness and she ran over and kissed the blind girl on the head and snaked an arm around her and muttered "Oh I do love you, Frances Grimes." It was a good job Miriam Kaufmann wasn't there to hear that, but this was a very different kind of love. Frances reached up and patted Arabella's arm gently.
"Poor Miss Nevada, you must think us a very odd pair of cuckoos." the Grimes girl apologised.
[OOC Sorry, got carried away there!]
"Seen more odder," Tully declared, for a moment keeping her place in the chair, but then curiosity got the better of her, and she unfolded so she could go over to examine the book. Sure enough, there were hundreds of tiny bumps all over the pages.
"Like it's got th' cold creeps or somethin'." Her nose wrinkled up skeptically. "I think ya was just recitin' whacha memorized. Look here." Closing her eyes, she ran her fingers at random over the page.
"Ah broken is th' golden bowl! th' spirit flown ferever!
Let th' bell toll!--a saintly soul floats on th' Stygian river;
And, Gee De Vere, hast ya no tear?--weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear an' rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!"
Tully grinned proudly. "I can read now!"