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Life in a Casket

By Preston Shires

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"So it is, that the most brutal man cannot live in constant association with a strong female influence, and not be greatly controlled by it."
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin


Chapter 1


Nebraska Territory, 1857


Some two months ago, it didn't seem like such a big thing to me to venture west and establish myself in a frontier town. Other women have done as much. I knew there were risks, cholera and Indians headed the list, but I never suspected that the townsmen themselves could not be trusted. With what befell me this past week, you might suggest I return to civilization and find a man of my choosing, someone with education and culture, with which to live out a safe and quiet life. I think, however, if you knew all that took place, the nature of the quest that lies before me, and the issues at stake, you would encourage me with your prayers to take the more perilous path into the future. But to win your prayers, I feel I must relate to you the story in full, starting at the beginning, late April, with my trip up the Missouri to the place where my adventure began.

* * *

The steamer I took out of Saint Louis to get to my final destination was quite admirable, and everyone aboard said so. But I suspected that had something to do with the fact that the vessel's name was Admiral and the men folk, the backwoods bachelors who clumb aboard as we made our way, and who soon constituted the majority of the passenger list, confounded the two words. Then again, they might have indeed found its accommodations remarkable, as they were obviously accustomed to living in dugouts and sleeping in vestments whose last wash coincided with their wading through a muddy creek.
However, those men aboard the Admiral attached to women folk, and who were mindful to monitor the antics of their offspring, were better groomed, but the impropriety of striking up conversation with them in the presence of their better halves left me in silence, which is an annoyance to my race. I was proud, though, to be a part of this host of emigrants willing to live up to our forefathers' daring to fulfill our nation's manifest destiny.
Leaning up against the railing and breathing in April's fresh scents, I discovered next to me a pair of men who stood out from the herd because they not only knew how to dress but also possessed a vocabulary that stretched beyond hunting, fishing, and the clearing of land, though the latter did also spark their interest. The first of these gentlemen called himself Mr. Furnas, Mr. Robert Wilkinson Furnas to be exact, and I was soon to learn that he edited and published a newspaper in Nemaha County, Nebraska, the land for which our ship was bound. He claimed it was the best newspaper in the county and enjoyed the widest distribution as well, and I came to appreciate this fact when I later discovered it was the only newspaper in the county.
I was not wholly unfamiliar with the broadsheet, it was the very one that I had perused back home, in Ohio. Apparently, every town back east that had a citizen taking refuge out west in Nebraska Territory received a copy. The rag was full of upbeat stories lauding the amenities and resources of Brownville: stores, blacksmiths, a bank, an organized church, and rich soil as far as the eye could see or the ox could plow.
"Mr. Furnas," I told him, after we introduced ourselves, "I'm disembarking at Brownville, and I've read about the settlement in the Nebraska Advertiser.” He complimented me on my reading habits--and it was indeed at this opportune moment that he acknowledged his association with the piece of literature in question--and he added that he and his associate were returning from four weeks' travel and were bringing back with them newfangled printing presses with which they hoped to improve the appearance of their editions.
“Your newspaper,” I said diplomatically, “is already a work of quality I’m sure, and informative. I have even read in it that there are plans to build a school of some consequence in Brownville. I, myself, have an education from Ohio's Oberlin College. Do you truly believe the community would be accommodating for a young lady?"
He eyed me very carefully, as if deciding whether he ought to be frank with me or give me the booster version of Brownville. I could understand his pride. There was a certain prestige associated with the town, it having been founded just three years ago, the moment the west side of the river officially opened to white settlement, making it arguably one of the oldest towns in the territory. However, the venerable newspaperman had to consider that I was about to perceive reality for myself, once I escaped the slow-moving Admiral.
"We've got a school and a teacher. And I might be persuasive enough to encourage him to step aside for a college educated schoolmarm."
I couldn't help but hear a suppressed guffaw from his companion, who turned away, roughly running the back of his sleeve across his lips as a child might wipe off a surplus of catsup.
Mr. Furnas had something of a glint in his eye that reminded me of my elder brother Jerome, when he once told me I could have a basket of apples. They were big, red, and crisp-looking apples. I was out by the pond and he was coming up the road from the direction of Mr. Harper's home place. Jerome stuffed three or four apples in his pockets, handed me the residue of nine or ten rolling about in the basket, and headed off to our abode by crossing through our dark and lonesome timber. I was only ten years old at the time, and in contemplating my good fortune, I envisioned an apple pie, until I met Mr. Harper returning home. He asked me if I planned on tying those apples back onto his tree. That's when I learned that a girl could be a whipping boy. Mr. Furnas indeed possessed Jerome’s wily look.
"The parents won't pay up will they?" I remarked.
He just smiled, praised the students, and wandered off to get a view of the passing river bank which was cluttered with beached branches and even whole riparian trees that had fallen to the relentless caresses of the Missouri or her tributaries.
"Met your match," I heard his friend say. Mr. Furnas chuckled.
I figured I actually wasn't really going to be much of a match for Mr. Furnas, as he appeared already taken, given the ring upon his annular, to say nothing of the four or five children he later spoke of as sons or daughters. No, his type were quickly roped and tied.
This thought did make me wonder about my future prospects in Brownville. I guess I had imagined I would come across a handsome beau on the frontier who could fell a tree whilst reciting poetry and painting a portrait of his beloved all in one fell swoop. Looking at the other and hirsute specimens of the male species perambulating about the deck, I was starting to have my doubts.
When the steamer was pulled up against the wharf, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was a stone landing and I wouldn’t have to sink my neatly laced boots into six feet of mud, especially since I measure only a trifle over five. Beyond the landing were bluffs rising up sharply and, in a southerly direction, along the extended wharf were buildings, one was a warehouse marked McPherson. The remainder of the city of Brownville, I surmised, must lay behind these structures, hiding up a draw with its homes scattered amongst the hills. No doubt seven hills, as every city, since the founding of Rome, must have that number. I suppose Fort Kearny out yonder on the Great Plains has as many.
Our approach to these hills was a welcomed event. We were greeted by a throng of people of all shapes and sizes. Boys and girls danced around playing tag and keep away, while some of the older crowd welcomed acquaintances they had once known in a previous life, back in the States.
Not all were cheerful. One man remonstrated that it wasn’t fit to bring in a steamer on a Sunday. “Makes your burden lighter, though, Joel,” I heard a voice say to the plaintiff.
“It’s the Sabbath,” Joel pontificated, and he was right of course, the 26th of April, 1857, was definitely a Sunday. And Joel always was right on Sundays, because I later learned he was the Reverend Joel Wood, the Campbellite minister. His flock boasted to be the first Brownvillian Christians to organize themselves into a proper church body.
Later I would have some empathy for this clergyman. In the middle of a sermon, when you could hear an approaching steamer off in the distance blowing its whistle, the men would be the first to withdraw from the back ranks of the congregation, and then the children would follow suit, until the women folk thought it best to go mind the little ones lest they fall in the river. In short order, the Reverend would decide to quit preaching to the choir, literally I mean, and, like Moses, would join his migrant flock at water's edge.
The quickness with which merchandise was unloaded from the Admiral earned my approval, though the stevedores’ celerity in dropping my trunk amongst barrels of salt and mackerel discombobulated me for a moment. One of Mr. McPherson’s boys nearly picked it up to take to his warehouse. Fortunately the trunk was bigger than the youngster, and before he could wrestle it away I put him on notice as the throng of fellow emigrants jostled against me.
That’s when it happened. Coming to my rescue was a tall, dark, and handsome-enough-for-Nebraska, Thurman Gallaway. He even tipped his hat to me as he inquired if I were in need of some assistance.
“You headed to the Nebraska House Ma’am?” he asked.
“Is there any other accommodation?” I questioned him in return. I like to know my options.
“There’s a scattering of boarding houses and so-called hotels," he said, casting an eye to a rough hewn structure with the words Union House Hotel imperfectly painted above the door, "but most are really no more than humble cabins and shacks. The proprietors, though, are genuinely hospitable and are willing to scoot over and share a straw mattress with anyone worthy of paying out a dollar. Two dollars if you want to share their plate.”
I could picture in my mind a burly matron in a cambric shirt for a nightie grumpily scooting across a mattress and pressing her frontier husband against the far wall in order to give me space aside her.
He paused, while I reflected, and then said warmly, “I’m Mr. Gallaway, Thurman if you please.” He held out his hand and I shook it.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Gallaway.” I forbore giving him my name, as I judge it best to take the measure of a man first. “And if it’s all the same to you, I believe I’ll take a room at the Nebraska House. I suppose you’re a porter?”
“No Ma’am, just a gentleman observing a damsel in distress. May I take your trunk for you? I’ve got a dray over there attached to an amiable mare, but you might wish to walk up to the hotel while she and I deliver your luggage. The cushions on my dray’s sofa are worn clean through.”
I agreed with him that a promenade was in order. His little dray’s sofa looked to be a frail board that had never been graced with anything more comfortable than splinters. “Most kind, but I’ll have to pay you. Can’t let you work without giving you something with which to buy your next meal.”
He shook his head to say payment wouldn’t be necessary, given that the hotel was but a stone's throw away, and proceeded to embrace my trunk. He did manage to lift it an inch or two off the ground before conceding defeat. “You carrying gold to California?” he asked.
“No, I’m staying in Brownville. I have an acquaintance here.”
“Well, what in tarnation do you got in this box?”
“They’re called books,” I said plainly.
“I’ve heard of ‘em, but don’t think there’s much need for such things out here. Though they might do for firewood in a pinch.”
My eyes must have given away my horror at his barbarous comment, because he quickly compared my expression to that of a pope finding Martin Luther ensconced in the Throne of Saint Peter.
I was surprised that such a man would be acquainted with the founder of the Reformation or with him whom papists claim to be the founder of their church, but I did deem it necessary to set him right about the sacred quality of the written word. "Books," I informed him, "are sources of enlightenment, as well as friends. They will not be subject to some frontiersman's inquisitional whim."
“When winter pays us her visit, Miss, you may come round to my way of thinking.” Seeing my persistent indignation he said more politely, “It is Miss isn’t it?”
“Miss Furlough,” I answered.
“Did you come with a first name Miss Furlough?”
“Miss A. Furlough,” I said shortly.
“Well, Miss A., I’m going to get that young man over there to help me heft your library onto my dray.”
“I thank you.”
He paused to scrutinize the label on the trunk. “‘A’ must stand for Adeline I take it.”
“You’re very gifted at figuring things out, Sir. Do you work for the sheriff?”
“Nah, Sheriff Coleman can handle the law well enough, and whatever other businesses he's involved in. I work for myself. Just a lonesome homesteader hoping to make good.”
The two men showed me their muscle by swinging my trunk onto the bed of the wagon. You might think I was nervous for my luggage, concerned that my new friend might pass up the hotel and trot off into the distance, but I was confident, given his literary inclinations, or lack thereof, that I had made a bargain; and I had seen right.

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