Oh How Can I Keep on Singing?: Voices of Pioneer Women
By Jana Harris
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About this ebook
The interconnected dramatic monologues in Oh How Can I Keep On Singing? are the stories of the forgotten women who settled the Okanogan in the late nineteenth century, arriving by horse-drawn cart to a place that purported to have such fine weather that a barn was unnecessary for raising livestock. Not all of the newcomers survived the cattle-killing winter of 1893. Of those who did, some would not have survived if the indigenous people had not helped them.
Jana Harris
Jana Harris is a poet, novelist, short story writer, and essayist who teaches creative writing at the University of Washington and is a Washington State Governor’s Writers Award and Andres Berger Award winner, as well as a PEN West Center Award finalist. She won a Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2001 and is editor and founder of Switched-on Gutenberg, one of the first electronic global poetry journals. She lives in the Cascade Mountains with her husband, where they raise horses.
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Book preview
Oh How Can I Keep on Singing? - Jana Harris
CATTLE-KILLING WINTER, 1889–90
We walked, of course.
Omaha to Walla Walla: 5 months, 3 days.
My husband, Nathan Sloan (known as Kentucky),
a fireman on the Missouri-Louisville line,
worked years tallowing valves
before the railroads fell on slack times.
He lost his job and the farm.
In Walla Walla, rested our oxen before
the baby—christened Caleb—was born,
walked another week north to where
Loop Loop Creek crosses the Okanogan.
Long days, high clouds, temperatures in the 90s.
Made a land claim, went to Buzzard Lake
to wash and water our stock,
met a miner, Dutch Jake, and his dog,
who infected my husband with gold fever.
Came back, found our claim jumped,
went up creek, made another. The only law
against selling black powder to an Indian.
Milled lumber too costly—not even a board
for a coffin. So cut and hewed logs for a cabin,
our lead ox hauling through mire.
Local talk had it winters too mild
to necessitate a barn.
Humidity high. Nighttime temperatures falling.
Mosquitoes so thick, Nathan had to stand
above me as I cooked, battling them off
with a towel. Morning coffee required
constant skimming, while bugs
in our mash appeared as caraway.
Deer were so plentiful they staggered
for lack of forage and could be had by clubbing.
November 1, ten venison hams hung from our eaves.
Nights getting longer, though unseasonably warm.
Just before New Year’s, I awoke to ice
in the washbasin. Snowed nineteen inches.
Temperatures dropped. Snow crusted hard enough
to cut the lead ox’s tendon.
John Other Day, Cut Nose, and their squaws
came daily to our door demanding flour.
Oats: six cents a pound; potatoes, five;
hay, a hundred a ton if you could find it.
Forty below by mid-month. The sun never shone.
Our oxen froze in the fields,
the twin calves dead at the milch cow’s side,
the last of our hay in front of her.
Five feet of snow and blizzarding winds
for thirteen consecutive days.
The only drinking water, melted snow;
the only wood, our furniture.
Nathan sawed frozen meat from the dead,
feeding it to what stock remained.
I soaked rags in the blood of offal, giving
the baby suck. God Be Praised, he thrived.
Up on Buzzard Mountain, prospectors
were trapped in their mines—the artillery
of avalanche thundered through our valley.
When he tried to leave, Dutch, his mule and hound,
were buried—the dog dug its way out.
Ours was the first cabin he came to.
Brought the two living cows and one horse
into our lean-to kitchen, supped with us
on flour mash and seed potato.
If we went anywhere, it was hand-over-hand
over ice. No mail for weeks,
river frozen, the railroad snowbound.
A stranger who went through on snowshoes,
said a neighbor’s wife died of laudanum
taken with suicidal intent.
Flour and sugar gone, rumor our daily bread.
When the ice melted, the creeks swelled
bringing typhoid which weakened my husband.
After pneumonia, he looked worse
than any at Andersonville and was unable
to help with chores.
First day of March. Days longer. Heavy fog.
The stock were enfeebled by hunger.
Balding from rain scald, hair fell in sheets
from their hides. When the spring grass
came on, they were too weak to graze,
collapsing like long-legged insects.
Ill myself, I crawled out to help, Caleb on my back:
right hoof forward, left knee bent, sometimes
it took a rail under the rump to raise them.
Most ranchers went under.
Some took twenty years to repay loans
on herds that perished, and then
only when they sold off their farms.
But the two cows left to us begat others
who begat the thousand head
Caleb and his sons graze in this valley.
I was born Effie Rebecca, named for my mother,
but forever after that cattle-killing winter,
my husband called me by another.
Years ago he went to the stone orchard,
my place beside him ready: "SLOAN, Nathan
known as Kentucky, and Wife, Born Again ’89
as God’s handmaiden, Faith."
Long Days. High clouds. Temperatures in the 90s.
AVALANCHE
Mary Brisky, Rattlesnake Canyon, February 1888
i.
I remember it this way:
That morning we sat down to breakfast,
me, mama, and the traveling Reverend.
My baby sister was on the floor
next to the sewing machine.
On the table, three blue bowls
filled with oatmeal.
It had a smoky taste that I’ll never forget.
Sepin was outside shoveling snow
off the roof. My father was up on the bluff
cutting trees, snaking them down the mountain.
When a tree fell, there was the noise
of lightning lash and as it hit the ground,
thunder shook our cabin—those trees
were twenty feet around, some of them.
When baby crawled under the table,
I was afraid she’d burn herself
on the hot stones mama had
put there to warm our feet,
so I stooped to pick her up.
ii.
What is your only comfort in life and death?
Reverend Beggs’s voice was far away.
I was lying on top of baby
who was screaming. I didn’t
realize what was smothering me,
until her breath melted the snow.
Mama was nearby. I could hear,
but couldn’t see or touch her.
She spoke calmly to us:
Lie quietly and breathe as lightly as possible.
The baby kept screaming ’til I thought
my head would split.
Are you hurt?
mama asked,
Can you wiggle your arms and legs?
I could. The baby was thrashing beneath me,
beating with her fists.
The Reverend’s voice was shallow.
From whence do you know your sin and misery?
No one answered. Mama said to me:
"Mary, the first thing to know about a baby
is to keep her warm and dry."
The baby howled louder. Everything around us
was wet and cold.
Don’t let her little butt get red,
mama said.
"For croup, rub her chest
in rendered mutton and turpentine."
The Reverend asked, How are you delivered?
Mama said, "Mary, you can get sixty loaves
of bread from a sack of flour,
if you’re frugal. I always could."
I said, yes, and then she said, "Remember
to seal your crock of sourdough
with a layer