Chapter 1

Clarinda Roemyrtle Crump sat on the front porch of the Baptist parsonage and frowned at Mr. Birder while she waited for her younger sister, Cordelia, to bring out the pitcher of lemonade for her and her suitor. At least the lemonade it would have ice in it. Their papa, the preacher of the River Street Baptist Church, had told Mama to buy some ice so Mr. Birder could have his lemonade cold.

She hoped drinking iced lemonade would make him sick. She had heard that ice cold drinks made old people get the cramps, and Mr. Birder was close to forty, which might not be old if you were forty, but it was old if you were seventeen. That is how old Myrtle was, seventeen, and Papa told her last Sunday night she had to marry Mr. Birder. She hoped he would get sick from the lemonade and have to go home.

They were sitting in straight chairs she had dragged out on the porch from the dining room before he got there. She had put one in the late afternoon sun near the railing, and one in the shade, which is where she sat until he got there, but he dragged the other one out of the sun into the shade too, up close to hers instead of sitting in the sun across from her.

"Don't you want to sit in the swing?" he asked smiling. He had a crooked incisor on the upper right side and it lapped over the tooth next to it. Long hairs grew from his nostrils and he had black tufts in his ears.

"Makes me sick to swing," she said.

"You was swinging last Sunday when I was here."

"Makes me sick today."

Behind them the screen door banged shut as Cordelia came out carrying a tray with a pitcher of lemonade, two glasses, and a plate of raisin oatmeal cookies. Chunks of ice rattled in the pitcher when she put the tray down on the wicker table under the living room window.

"Mama said you-all might like some lemonade to cool off with," she said.

"Thank you kindly, Miss Dee," the man said.

Myrtle set her jaw tight and said nothing.

"You're welcome, Mr. Birder," Dee said and smiled at him all sweetness and light. She put the tray down on a table between the two straight chairs and went back in the house.

Myrtle hated her sister for being nice to the man. She was fifteen and thought marrying Mr. Birder would be wonderful. He owned a hardware store on First Street and had a big house with two bay windows on the front and a maid to cook and clean up and mind the three kids he had by the wife that died in childbirth a year ago the fourth of July.

Well, Myrtle thought, Dee is welcome to him, but Myrtle was not ready to marry any body, especially an old man with three kids already, no matter how many bay windows he had, including the one pushing out his trousers behind his belt.

"Arguing won't do you any good," Papa had said, but she argued anyway and he sent her to her bedroom to cool off.

"I didn't ask you if you wanted to get married," he said. "Mr. Birder is a good Christian man and he'll make you a good living. Be thankful to God Almighty he wants to marry you when he could have any woman in Shreveport. Me and your mama have seen you through school. You can't spend the rest of your life sitting around the house doing nothing but eating three meals a day off my table.

“What do you expect in life anyway? Women get married off if they're lucky enough for somebody to want them. You want to be an old maid like your Aunt Elizabeth, eating off your sister's husband and sleeping on the parlor sofa with no place of your own?"

Aunt Elizabeth got up and left the table without finishing supper, but her brother-in-law pretended not to notice.

"What do you think you'll do if you don’t get married?”

"Teach school."

"For the rest of your life? Women teach if they can't find someone to marry them.”

"I'm not an old lady. I'm just seventeen. If I do decide to get married someday, somebody else will come along and want to marry me then."

"Somebody has already come along. Myrtle."

"But Papa, folks don't tell their kids who to marry like they used to do. People marry who they want to nowadays. It's 1916."

"And that's what's wrong with the world. There's people going to Hell all over because they've lost all sense of morality. Christians don't do something just because the world does it, young lady. ‘Be in the world, not of it,’ the Bible says."

"But, papa, I don't love Mr. Birder. He's old and he's got a pot belly and hair in his nose."

"Myrtle, you stop that kind of talk. It's no kind of talk for a lady. You’ll learn to love what's good for you. Now stop talking back to me and make up your mind to do what I say. I'm your Father and I know what's best for you. ‘Honor your father, the Bible says.’"

That was when he sent her up to the bedroom she shared with Dee and that was the last he said to her about it. Her mama was the one who came to tell her Mr. Birder was coming over on Wednesday after supper to sit on the front porch with her and drink iced lemonade.

Mr. Birder cleared his throat. Lemonade sure looks good," he said looking at the pitcher on the table between them.

Myrtle nodded with her teeth clenched tight but did not speak.

“Sure would like some," he said.

"Then get some," she said and did not move to get it for him.

The man's face turned red and the hairs in his nostrils stood out straight, but he did not say anthing. Myrtle glanced at him after a moment and saw that his face was not as red, but he was staring at her with a hurt look on his face. He saw her look in his direction and cleared his throat again, then he spoke.

"Miss Myrtle," he said, "I hate for us to get started off wrong. I admire you very much and, like I told your Paw, I can make you a good living–give you just about anything you'd want."

“Nobody’s paid any attention to what I want yet.”

She looked at him when she spoke and saw his face get red again. By now the sun had moved far enough for the whole porch to be in the shade. She go up and moved her chair away from him to the railing. His face looked red enough now for him to get sick without drinking the iced lemonade, but being mad had made her mouth dry as powder and she got up to pour a glass for both of them.

She handed him the glass and sat down again.

"Thank you, Miss Myrtle," hje said and drank a big swallow.

She nodded but said nothing, watching his Adam's apple jerk up and down. After a moment, he spoke again.

"Is there somebody else you got your head set on? Somebody maybe your Paw don't know nothing about?"

It was none of Isaiah Birder's business, but she answered anyway, telling him the truth.

"No."

"Then I guess I just don't understand, Miss Myrtle. I thought you liked me."

"I like you all right, Mr. Birder. I just don't want to marry you. I don't want to marry anybody. Not now."

"But, I can make you a better living than most any man in Shreveport.”

"Shreveport's not the whole world."

"I got my hardware business and the house, and. . ."

"And three kids already."

"They're good kids."

"I guess so, but I'm not ready to be a mother yet–not for kids that aren't mine."

"That's not a very Christian way to talk. A good Christian woman ought to want to look after three motherless children."

"Looking after them and being their stepmother's not the same thing."

"I don't know what's different about it."

"Teddy is thirteen, almost as old as I am. I don't even remember before he was born. I was too young."

"I don't know what difference that makes."

"Sleeping with his paw for one thing. I'd rather sleep with Teddy."

There. She'd said it and damn him. She did not want him and his bay window wallowing all over her.

"Miss Myrtle! That's... That's not a decent thing for a lady, particularly a young lady like yourself to be talking about. You shouldn't even be thinking about things like that, much less saying anything like that. What do you know about that sort of thing anyway? It's not fitting to say to a man on you're paw's front porch, him being a preacher and all."

"You did intend to sleep with me didn't you? If I married you?"

Mr. Birder's face went purple-red now, but he did not look like he would be sick. He was just mad.

"That's not something a Christian woman talks about."

"Why?"

"You of all people ought to know better, being a preacher's daughter. Thank you for the lemonade. Go on in the house now and tell your paw I want to talk to him out here on the porch."

Now she was scared and her hands trembled a little as she picked up the lemonade tray, but her voice did not quaver when she spoke.

"Will you hold the door open for me, Mr. Birder," she said, and walked past him into the house.

Her papa was sitting at the dining room table reading the paper. Her mama and Dee were crocheting near the window, taking advantage of the light. She did not see Aunt Elizabeth. She was probably sitting in the kitchen by herself. That is what she usually did after cleaning up the supper dishes.

"Mr. Birder wants to see you on the porch, Papa," Myrtle siad, then she turned and went straight up to the bedroom.

She pulled the stool out from under the dressing table and looed at herself in the mirror. She was pretty with dark blue eyes and chestnut hair and she had a good figure. She knew she was pretty, but right now she wished she was homely, like her sister Dee, then maybe Isaiah Birder would leave her alone.

She turned away from the mirror and looked out the back window at the vegetable garden in the yard. Her mother and father had the front bedroom above the porch so she could not overhear what Mr. Birder had to say to her father.

After a while, she heard her father's footsteps climbing the stairs and turned on the stool to face the door. He did not knock when he came in. For a moment, he just stood without speaking, breathing hard from climbing the steps.

She heard her mother below, calling up from the foot of the stairs.

"Abner? Abner, what is it? What's happened?"

"Girl," her papa said, "I’m mortified and ashamed of you for what you said to Mr. Birder. I’ll not stand for talk like that from my own daughter.”

She nodded. She held her hands tight together in her lap. A beating would be worth it to get out of marrying Isaiah Birder.

"You've done a very wicked thing, Myrtle, a sinful thing for a woman, talking like that to the man who's going to be your husband."

His voice was low and unsteady. She could not tell if he was angry or grieved, but he could barely control himself.

“I don’t want to be his husband. I don’t want to be anybody’s husband.”

"You can thank the grace of God he's still willing to marry you," he said.

"No. I wish to God he didn’t."

Myrtle spoke the quick denial like a pistol shot.

"Abner? Answer me," Mrs. Crump cried from the foot of the stairs. "What's going on up there? Answer me for the love of God. "

Myrtle heard her climbing the stairs. She was a fat woman and climbing the stairs was hard work for her.

"Now you hush your mouth, Myrtle," Her papa said. "You're asking for a beating and I’ve a good mind to give it to you for your own good–for the good of your soul. I won't have you going to hell for sassing me and taking vulgar to the man who wants to marry you."

"Abner!"

Myrtle heard her mother's heavy footsteps on the stairs.

"Beat me if you want to, papa," she said. She thought she could stand a beating from him better than she could marry Mr. Birder. "–but I'll willingly go to hell before I marry Isaiah Birder. Beat me to death if you want to and you can go to hell too."

Her mother stood behind her father in the door.

"Abner! What are you doing? Myrtle, what have you done?"

"Sarah, bring me my strap."

“Abner, no.”

"Do as I say."

Her mother was crying. "No, Abner. Please, no."

Dee was outside in the hall too now and she was also crying.

"Go ahead, Mama," Myrtle said. “Get him his strap. I don’t care.” She felt calm, like she was watching it all happen in a dream. "Get the strap. I don't care if he beats me to death. That's all he can do, beat me to death, but he can't make me marry Isaiah Birder if he takes me to church tied up and gagged or in a coffin."

"Hush, Myrtle," her mother said, then, "Abner, let me talk to her. I can talk some sense into her."

"Get me my strap, Sarah."

"Please, Abner, no."

"Get the strap."

“Let me talk to her."

"Mama, Papa, let me marry him. I want to marry him." It was Dee.

"Get downstairs. Dee," her father shouted at her.

"But Papa. . ."

"Go get the strap, Sarah, or I'll beat all three of you. Get it. Now!"

"I'll get it, Papa," Dee cried. "Don't beat me, Papa. I'll get the strap." And she did.

*****

Myrtle hurt all over. Not just her behind and her back hurt, but all over. She had been determined when he beat her not to cry, but it hurt too much and she had to. He made her take off her dress and leave on her shift, but it still hurt bad. After the first few strokes of the strap she started to cry.

When she started to cry, he stopped and asked her if she was ready to marry Isaiah Birder, and she said no, and he started to beat her again. She screamed and begged him to stop, but each time he asked her if she was ready to marry Birder and she said
"No! Never!" and he would start beating her again.

Her mama stayed outside in the hall for a while, then she went back in the bedroom and begged him to stop too, but he kept swinging the strap, breathing hard, gasping for breath, like he was running up a hill. Outside in the hall, Dee was crying, then she started screaming too.

Finally, Myrtle did not know how long it lasted, but she heard a man's voice in the room besides her father.

"Stop it, Brother Crump. Stop it," he shouted. It was Isaiah Birder. He must have caught her papa's arm, for Myrtle felt the wind from a final blow that did not land.

"I don't want her anymore, for God's sake," Birder shouted. "God Almighty, you can hear her screaming all over Shreveport. And Mrs. Crump too, and Miss Dee. You can hear them screaming all over town for God's sake. I don't want her anymore and, God Almighty, everybody in Shreveport knows she won't have me either."

*****

Aunt Elizabeth came up to the bedroom after it was over and helped Myrtle out of the shift and put witchhazel on the welts and held her while she vomited, and she must have slept for a while, maybe an hour or two, but now she was awake. Outside the moon was white on the vegetable garden in back of the house.

She listened to the quiet house. Mama was in bed. Myrtle could hear her soft crying from across the hall. And Papa was sitting in the swing on the porch. Myrtle could hear the chain creak with his weight clear upstairs in the back of the house. Dee had cried herself to sleep in the bed next to her. Myrtle got up and started packing.

She did not have a valise, but she got a pasteboard box out of the attic and stuffed everything that would not fit in the box into a pillow case. She had a little money, about two dollars in change and she put that in her purse, and carrying the box with the pillow case on top, she went downstairs, avoiding the step that creaked near the bottom.

She went quietly into the kitchen, heading for the back door, but stopped terrified. Someone was sitting in the dark at the kitchen table. She was afraid that her papa had come in from the front porch. She could see the dark form of a body framed by the white moonlit doorway. She saw the glint of a butcher knife lying on the kitchen counter.

“Myrtle?”

She recognized Aunt Elizabeth's whispered voice.

"I'm leaving," Myrtle said. "I’m running away. Don't try to stop me."

"Don't worry about that. I should have told you to run off last Sunday night after they hatched up your marrying Isaiah Birder. Here, I just wanted to give you something."

She pressed money into Myrtle's hand. Some bills and change.

"It's not much. I wish I had more. God keep you. Try to get word to me how you are. Your mother will worry, but maybe she'll understand too."

Myrtle's hand closed on the money and she took it without regret.

"Where will you go?" Aunt Elizabeth asked.

The reality of what Myrtle was doing struck her. She had no idea where she could run to. She had not thought of anything yet but escaping from the house.

"I... I don't know, Aunt Elizabeth. I haven't thought..." Suddenly she felt trapped.

Where did she have to run to?" She fought to hold back the panic. "Take the train to Houston, I guess, if I've got enough money for the ticket."

"Won't do. The train doesn't come through till 10 in the morning. Your paw will be down at the station looking for you."

"What should I do, Aunt Elizabeth. I can't stay here."

"Go down to the river. And don't let anybody see you between here and there. Go to the wharf at the end of Pine Street and hide in one of the sheds until daylight. There's a man named Bart Dillon who has a barge tied up at the wharf. He stays on it. When you see him come up out on deck, go down to the barge and tell him Betty sent you. Make sure nobody sees you.

"Who's Betty?"

"That's the name he knows me by."

Myrtle looked closely at her aunt in the moonlit kitchen. She realized suddenly how little she really knew the woman. She had always been there, but in the background without much to say, cleaning up and cooking for her mother, but not saying much about what she did or thought. She was gone sometimes in the afternoon, but she just said visiting friends. Myrtle had always thought she went to see Miss Sims, who lived upstairs from the drugstore and sewed for people. It was strange to think that Aunt Elizabeth knew other people and one of them was a man named Bart Dillon. It was strange to think of her as Betty.

"What then?"

"Tell him you want to go down river with him to New Orleans."

"On the river?"

"They'll be watching the railroad station."

"I didn't think anybody traveled on the river anymore."

"Not many still do. That's why you may get away without getting caught.”

Myrtle nodded.

"When you get to New Orleans, go to 234 Prytania Street in the Garden District. I wrote the address down. It’s with the money I gave you. It's a girl's school. Ask for Miss Ophelia Juttison. Sheand her sisters own the school. Tell her I sent you. Tell her I know your mother or something. Don't tell her you're my niece. She might feel like she had to contact your mama and papa if she thought you had run away.

Don't give her your right name either. And don't tell Bart your right name either. He may know who you are, but he won't let on like he does. That's the best I can do for you."

"Thank you, Aunt Elizabeth. I don't know how to thank you, but I won't forget you helped me."

"I won't forget you helped me either," Elizabeth said. Myrtle did not know what her aunt meant, but she put the words away to think about later and slipped through the door into the moonlight.

When she got to the river and found the barge Elizabeth had described to her, the man Bart was sitting on deck smoking a pipe in the moonlight, so she did not hide like Elizabeth had told her, but walked to the edge of the pier and spoke to him.

“Are you Bart Dillon?” she asked.

“I am,” he said looking for the voice that spoke out of the night. “Who are you girl?”

“My name’s Claire. My friend Betty said I might could go down to New Orleans with you on the river.”

He looked at her for a long minute before the spoke, trying to see her better in the moonlight.

You got a last name, Claire.”

“Beauvoir.” It was the last name of her French teacher at school.

“You a Cajun?”

“No, but my husband was. He’s dead. I’m a widow.”

“You look mighty young to be a widow.”

“No law says a widow’s got to be old.”

“I guess not. When you want to leave.”

“I’m ready to go now,” she said.

“Can you wait ‘til daylight? He laughed.

“If I can spend the rest of the night on board ,” she said. I haven’t got anyplace else to go.

“Sure. Come aboard, widow Beauvoir, and welcome.”