Soloman Butcher's Photograph

THE PHOTOGRAPH

"Oh, my Gawd, no!"

"Josiah, I'd prefer it if you didn't use such language."

"But Maw, I don't like havin' my photograph took."

"How do you know? You've never had it done before," Miriam Davis said, with as much patience as she could muster.

"Why do we have to have our picture took?" Willie asked, in the slightly sulky tone his mother hated.

"Mr. Butcher is reckoning on making a pioneer history, and Pa figures that as we're part of that history, we should be in it."

"But, Maw, we don't have ter git washed for a stupid old photograph, do we?" Josiah asked.

"Indeed you do. Washed and smartened up in your best clothes."

"Not waistcoat an' all?" The 13-year old boy was horrified.

"Quit squawking, Josiah and get on with it. Folks back East will be looking at these pictures and I'm going to make sure the family looks decent."

Back East; it seemed so far away, not just in distance, but in time, too. It was sixteen years since newly-married Miriam had followed her husband, Charley, from her small home town in Pennsylvania to the plains of Nebraska. She had been full of doubts, but he had brushed them all aside.

"What have I got here 'cepting a life stuck down the black pits? My pa done that since he was a boy and now he lies in his six foot of earth. He weren't no more than forty-four or five. Well, that's not for me. There's wide open spaces in Nebraska and under the Homestead Act there's land going free. For no more than a ten dollar registration fee I can get one hundred and fifty acres; all I have to do is live and work on the land for five years and it's mine," Charley had said eagerly.

"But what about the Indians, Charley? She had replied doubtfully.

"They've been cleared off to the reservations years ago. There ain't nothing' to fear from them."

"We've got no money for setting up home somewhere else."

"We don't have much here, so we got nothing' to lose. Now, I ain't goin' to have any more arguing'. My mind is made up. You marry me or not, as you thinks fit."

That was quite a proposal, but totally typical of Charley. Twenty-two years old, he was tall and lanky with curly hair and a determined set to his mouth. When he started out to do something he did it to the best of his ability and once he had made his mind up, there was no changing it.

"All right, Charley," Miriam had said after the merest hint of consideration. "As far as I can judge the Good Lord meant us to share our lives together. If I can't stop you from going West, then I guess I'll have to join you."

The wedding took place only two days before Charley's departure, so there was little time for love or romance. He was going ahead of Miriam to stake a claim and build a house; his wife would follow as soon as possible.

The ceremony was plain and simple, with only a handful of guests. To save money the bride wore her best silk dress instead of buying something special for the occasion. Somehow it all seemed to be over before she realised and it never was a day to remember.

Charley drew his savings out of the bank and closed the account. He had only 75 dollars and immediately had to pay out 23 dollars 5 cents for his train ticket to the West.

When he set out in 1877 almost the entire journey could be accomplished by rail; first to Buffalo, New York State, from there to Kansas City, Missouri, then on the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad to Lincoln, Nebraska. The journey took three days and three nights and at the end of it many people were put off by the endless flat plains. Looking at it, anyone could be forgiven for thinking that nothing would grow out there.

"God forsaken!" said one man. "I'm going back East."

But Charley was not to be so easily put off. He hitched a ride on a freight wagon to Broken Bow, Nebraska, and then staked a claim to his 160 acres. By law he had to build a house 12 by 12 with windows, so this he set out to do using the locally accepted method. When it was finished he sent for his wife.

"Oh, Charley!"

It was hard to say whether Miriam's exclamation was induced by pride at his achievement, or horror at the mud hut she was gazing at.

"It ain't rightly speakin' mud," Charley patiently explained. "That there's prairie sod - a whole acre of the stuff."

Miriam was uncertain about the difference between mud and prairie sod, but accepted what her husband told her.

"And there's your window."

He proudly pointed to the plain, timber-framed legal requirement. It was Miriam's window because Charley had run out of money before he got to it and she had to sell her silk dress to allow him to finish the job.

"Does it open?" she asked.

"No - it's fixed. Best way when the prairie wind blows. Less rattle."

Charley could have added that it took all his ingenuity to make a window at all. A close look would reveal the joints were badly cut and far from square. Even so, he was proud to have built his own house and improvements could always be made later on.

"It needs some pot plants and a frill of curtains to brighten it up," Miriam said, still gazing at the window.

"Just as you like. The whole place needs a woman's touch."

Miriam thought that, even then, it would be an unprepossessing dwelling in a barren and hostile land. What madness it was for anyone to come to such a desolate place and expect to live. Yet, here she was and she had better make the best of it.

She brushed the dust off her clothes and wondered how she could get a wash.

*****

"Here's the tub, Maw."

"Thank you, Daniel."

Miriam smiled fondly at her third son, aged 11. She knew it wasn't right to have favourites, but it wasn't always possible to do right and Daniel was the one she took to best. He had dark, wavy hair which he always took care to keep tidy, and a willing, pleasant nature. He was always happy to help his mother with the household chores and had inherited her love of books and music.

"Put some more cow chips in the stove. We've got a lot of water to boil up."

"Yes, Maw."

Daniel set about the unpleasant task, pausing after a minute or two. "Maw."

"Yes, dear?"

"This picture that Mr. Butcher's takin' will last for a long time, won't it?"

"For all time, I shouldn't wonder."

"So we want to look our best."

"Most surely."

A hesitation, then: "Maw, don't you think I should have boots to wear? It don't look right, me having bare feet."

Miriam's heart filled with sympathy. She hated any of her children going around with nothing on their feet. It was a symbol of their poverty; an indication of their failure to do more than wrest a meagre living from the prairie.

Over the years Charley had done his best to improve the conditions in which they lived and the sod house had begun to look more like a home. Miriam's window was full of pot plants, which she had carefully nurtured, often helped by Daniel. There were two little cages hanging on the wall containing songbirds, whose sweet warbling filled the house with music. A neat fence enclosed a small garden in which herbs and vegetables grew. She could take pride in what had been achieved, but she still longed for a proper house built out of wood, with a floor and rugs instead of naked earth. But wood was in short supply in Nebraska.

Oh, there were plenty of other things; blizzards, dust storms, locusts, winds, drought and snow. But there was no timber. At least Miriam could be grateful for that; it meant that her neighbours were no better off. True, Mrs Wright, 20 miles away, had bought an organ which she was always boasting about, but it did look a little out of place in a sod house. Her children went around barefoot in the summer, too. Boots were an expensive luxury when the weather was warm and the ground dry.

When the winter snows came, the barefoot children wrapped several layers of rags round their legs and feet. They also tried to stay indoors as much as possible. Eventually they reached an age when boots became an absolute necessity.

"Twelve," Charley said. "When a boy reaches the age of twelve he'll be doin' a man's work, so I figger that's when I'll get them boots from Montgomery Ward."

Miriam gave her third son a sad little smile. "According to your Pa's reckoning you've another four months before you qualify for boots. Anyways, Mr. Butcher is coming today to take the picture, so there's nothing can be done."

"Yeh, I reckon not," Daniel said with a sigh. Then he hopefully added: "Maybe Mr. Butcher will come back next year to take another picture."

Miriam laughed. "Maybe," she agreed. "We'd best start getting the water organised for the baths to be taken."

"OK, Maw."

Every homestead required a good supply of water and that was a commodity hard to come by, despite torrential spring rains. The land often lay bone dry. When Charley first arrived he took his water from a creek, but that was over a mile away and it had a tendency to turn to dust in the mid-summer heat. Once the house was built and his wife settled, Charley had turned his attention to the problem of water.

"What are you doing?" Miriam asked early one morning as she saw her husband carrying a spade and pacing out the ground.

"Gonna dig a well." He stopped his pacing and made a digging action.

"How do you know there's water down there?" Miriam enquired.

"Don't," came the reply.

It took many days with both of them working to make a hole of any size. At first Charley scooped up the dirt with his shovel and threw it over his shoulder. When the shaft became too deep he rigged a windlass and set Miriam to cranking up buckets of dirt. She watched anxiously as day followed day and her husband disappeared farther and farther into the earth. She was thinking how ironic it was that they had quit Pennsylvania because Charley didn't want to be a miner when there was a sudden curse from below.

"What is it, Charley?"

"Struck shale. Twenty-five feet down and there's no water - just shale."

"Now what are you going to do?"

"Try somewhere else."

"Oh no!" Miriam cried, her voice full of anguish.

Charley climbed out of the hole. "Don't worry. There are guys round here who have dug four or five wells - and they still ain't found water!"

"But you could look for ever and not find any. There must be an easier way."

"There ain't," Charley said, as he began pacing once more, "'ceptin' you believe in water witches."

"What are they?"

"Accordin' to them they've got some sort of mystical power. They walk around holdin' a Y-shaped willow stick in both hands. If the stick begins to bounce around they say that's the place to dig 'cause there's water below."

He stopped his pacing, spat on his hands and struck the spade into the ground. Miriam watched in dismay.

"Don't you think it would be a good idea to get hold of one of these water witches?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Don't believe in all that mumbo-jumbo."

Charley kept on digging.

Six months and three holes later he struck pay dirt and water started gushing up only ten feet down.

"Eureka!"

Miriam heard the shout a mile away at the creek where she was washing some clothes. As usual they were clean for brown, but awful dirty for white because of a shortage of soap. She was often in dismay at how ineffective her efforts proved to be.

At the distant shout she became even more dismayed and worried. She was unable to tell whether it was a cry of joy or agony, so she quickly bundled up the clothes and ran as fast as she could towards the house.

"Whee!"

Charley ran towards her waving his arms in jubilation. Miriam dropped the half-clean clothes as she was picked up and whirled around in the air till her head was spinning.

"What is it, Charley?" she breathlessly asked.

"I've done it!"

"You've found water?" Miriam asked incredulously.

"Darned right I have. We've got our well."

"Oh Charley. You mean no more going to the creek and fetching water?"

"Never again."

"No more beating the washing on the rocks?"

"You can have your own wash tub."

"Oh, Charley!"

She flung herself into his arms and they kissed - the longest and most passionate kiss they had ever given each other. Who cared if it was broad daylight? Who cared if they were outside? The nearest neighbour was miles away. There was no-one to see as they sank onto their knees, lips still pressed together. No-one to see as she lay on the ground; no-one to see as he raised up her skirt and pulled down her drawers. There were no prying eyes as he unfastened his trousers, lowered himself and entered her.

Nine months later their first son was born.

*****

"Get yourself stripped, James, and into that tub."

"Oh, Maw, I had a wash on Sunday."

"And you're going to have another one now. All of this family is going to be scrubbed and clean and looking their very best." Miriam heard stifled laughter behind her. She turned and glared at her husband. "And what may you be laughing at, Charley Davis?"

"Honey, Sol Butcher aims to photograph us sodbusters as we really are, not all fancied up and looking like we're at a Sunday picnic."

"So you're saying we're really dirty, unkempt vagrants living in a mud hut in the middle of nowhere and we might as well look that way."

By this time Miriam was boiling mad and Charley could tell he had put his foot in it. "No, I wasn't meanin' that," he said in a tone intended to pacify her.

"For sixteen years I've sweated and slaved by your side to try and make this a decent place to live."

"I know that."

"I wanted to stay in Pennsylvania, but you had the wanderlust or something, so I followed you out here. I've put up with a dirt floor that's open house for fleas; mice in my bed; snakes in my pans and the roof leaking mud into the food. I've waded around in here wearing a rubber cape and boots until the rains stopped, then been boiled alive in temperatures over a hundred degrees, before being half-frozen when the thermometer's gone forty degrees below. I've cooked on a stove using cow chips for fuel and given birth to four sons without a doctor, and almost without any kind of rest before or after. And I reckon that after sixteen years it's about time I let you know that life is too short to be spent under a sod roof!"

Miriam burst into tears and collapsed onto a chair, holding her apron over her face. She had just made the longest speech in her life and it left all the males dumbfounded and silent. Nothing could be heard but Miriam's sobs and the low moan of the wind through the wooden vanes of the windmill.

*****

"You're going to buy what?" Miriam thought she had misheard.

Charley looked up from the farm journal he had bought on his last trip to town. "A Halladay Standard Windmill," he said. "It says here that it's the only windmill awarded two medals and diplomas."

"What do we want with a windmill?"

"You got mighty tired of traipsin' down to the creek for water, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"And you were glad when I dug the well not a hundred paces from the house."

"Yes."

"Well, I'm sure as hell tired of pumpin' that darned water up out of the ground."

"I do my share," Miriam indignantly proclaimed.

"I ain't sayin' you don't. It's hard work for both of us and it's somethin' we could both do without."

"So what's a windmill got to do with the water?"

"This guy, Halladay, has designed one to withstand the high prairie winds and he's put a crankshaft on it so that as the mill turns it pumps up and down. All we do is stand back and watch," Charley triumphantly added.

"Can we afford it?"

"We should have a good crop this year, so I figger we can get by."

It was a struggle, but they did it. Four months later they were gazing up at the wooden structure towering over their homestead.

"Gee!" exclaimed James, now five years old.

"Gee!" copied Josiah, one year younger.

"It's like a giant." James gaped in amazement at the mechanism without a vestige of understanding.

"A giant," came the echo.

James cuffed his brother for copying him and they went into a clinch as Josiah fought back.

"Boys, boys!" Miriam cried.

They fell to the ground and rolled around, stirring up the dust.

"OK, that's enough!" Charley pulled the boys up and held them apart. "Now, quit it, do you hear?"

"He keeps repeatin' everything I say," squawked James.

"That's just because he's little," Miriam said.

"Little and stupid," James venomously added.

"Stupid yourself!" Josiah retorted, putting his tongue out at his brother.

"I'll git you for that!" James angrily yelled.

Both boys struggled to get free, but Charley's grip was too tight.

"Now settle down or I'll wallop the both of you. This is supposed to be a happy occasion. We've got us our very own windmill and in future years it's goin' to save us all one heap of sweat and fury. Look up there at it turnin'. Ain't that a pretty sight?"

They all looked up into a perfect blue sky and saw the vanes of the mill slowly rotating in the gentle breeze.

*****

"Seems to me," Charley said after a long silence, "that you kids had better do as your ma says and get yourselves scrubbed down."

"Boots polished too," Miriam sniffed.

The protests about to be made were quelled by a stern look from Pa.

The long-winded and difficult process of the entire family having a strip wash took all of two hours. The first one through the tub was the youngest, Willie. He was followed by Daniel, then Josiah, James and Charley. When it came to Miriam's turn a blanket was strung across the room, dividing it in half.

This was a special occasion so she used her most expensive and sweetly-perfumed soap. She realised that a photograph would be unable to detect the scent of soap, but reckoned that if it made her feel extra good, then that would show up through Mr. Butcher's lens.

She had only just finished putting on her best flowered skirt, with a blouse buttoned up to the neck, when she heard the sound of a wagon approaching.

"Miriam!" Charley called.

"I hear," she replied, hurriedly making sure her collar was neat and her hair tidy. When she pulled away the blanket there were whistles of approbation.

"By golly, Ma!" Charley said. "You're a sight fit fer a princess."

Miriam blushed. "Oh, go away, Charley Davis. I ain't got the looks nor the dress for such a being." All the same, she was pleased at the reaction to her endeavours.

"Howdy, folks," Soloman Butcher said as he climbed down from the wagon. "All ready for the big event?"

"We sure are," Charley replied.

"The family's looking a real treat, Mrs Davis," the photographer said admiringly. "Yes, ma'am, a real treat."

"Thank you, Mr. Butcher."

"Now then, boys, you can give me a hand with my equipment. But don't be too hasty and take care; it's heavy and easily damaged."

Charley stood with his arm around his wife's shoulders as they watched Sol Butcher unload the wagon. He was a large, friendly man in his mid-thirties. Born and bred in Nebraska, he had worked briefly as a photographer back East, but then hit upon the idea of producing an album of his fellow settlers. To that end he inserted advertisements in newspapers and for the next fifteen years photographed sodbusters like Charley Davis and his family.

"OK, tell me what you want this picture to show."

"Well - I don't rightly know, Mr. Butcher," Charley replied. "I figger that's your end of the deal. I don't know nix about photo-graphy," he went on, emphasising the second part of the strange sounding word.

"You don't have to know a thing, Charley. I'll do the taking of the picture, but I want you to tell me what to take. Above all else, I want you to feel comfortable and as natural as can be."

"I think, Mr. Butcher," Miriam said decisively, "if we all stand in front of the house and you put your camera on the other side of the wicker fence, that would show everything we want."