The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton by Jane Smiley Page A

what it was—the effects of a moment so short that it lasted only so long as it took for the patrons at the table to see the dishes of food and then reach for them, and yet it leaked into and colored every subsequent moment. Even now, as I recall our ride to Lawrence, the rolling golden prairie with its lines of distant trees and its distant dome of blue seem infused with shadows. The road, for the most part, was hard enough, and Mr. Graves knew where all the mirey spots were and avoided them. Nor was there solitude to oppress us—we met men, women, and children, wagons and walkers and riders, and everyone shouted out in the friendly way that westerners have on the road. The landscape was just as we expected it to be and displayed the expected open sort of beauty. Even so, the very sunshine looked dark to me, and the heat of the day, which was waxing moment by moment, seemed cold. I could not imagine any cabin, any town, any society, that would relieve my spirits.
    Thomas, on the other hand, admired the country and was pleased as he could be to have arrived, and he spoke to Mr. Graves with thorough animation and lack of reserve. Eavesdropping, I added to my knowledge of my husband.
    "I knowed you was a preacher," said Mr. Graves.
    "I was for a few months only," said Thomas. "After leaving Harvard College. But the work didn’t suit me. When members of my flock sought my counsel, it struck me dumb."
    "That an’t bad," said Mr. Graves. "Most folks like to talk themselves into whatever it is that they want to do, anyway. I did some work in the preaching line myself, but it didn’t pay. Folks expect the word of God to be free for the asking."
    "Then I did some schoolteaching around and about Medford—"
    "Well, that don’t pay, neither. I done plenty of that, though I only know my tables up to six, but you know, six is half a dozen, and as soon as you know a dozen, you can sell what you got to sell. That’s what I told my boys."
    "Then I went onto a merchant ship with my brother for a year, carrying loads of rosewood from the Amazon, and then I made sails in my father’s factory."
    "You may say what you please about the sea," said Mr. Graves. "I an’t never seen it, I don’t know what’s there. I an’t never been to New Orleans, even." With this, though I was eager to hear of my husband’s maritime adventures, Mr. Graves declared the subject of seafaring a closed one. We jolted along in silence. The ears of the mules flicked forward and back and the wagon squeaked and creaked. Mr. Graves began to hum a tune but broke off abruptly and said, "Got me some warts. You got any warts?"
    Thomas allowed that he didn’t have any warts at the moment.
    "Well, I tried one cure. Worked for me years ago, but it didn’t work at all here in K.T. What you got to do is give ’em away to two men riding on one gray horse. Saw a couple of men like that in the spring, so I wrapped up some one-cent pieces in a packet, as many as there are of the warts, and I had those men carry them one-cent pieces to Shawnee, but them warts didn’t follow them a-tall. I was disgusted! I looked for those two men on that one gray horse for six months or more, then it didn’t work! But now I found another cure, and we got to stop here and put it into effect. Whoa, back, boys!" he shouted to the mules, then jumped down off the wagon and went around to the rear, where he pulled out a neatly wrapped parcel. Thomas gave me a smile. "Here you are," said Mr. Graves. "You know what this is? This is twenty-six grains of barley. That’s one grain for each wart." He grinned and set the package by the side of the road. "See them warts?" He flourished his hand in my face. "As soon as some unsuspecting abolitionist comes along and picks up that package, well, them warts will start fading away." He thrust his warty palm under Thomas’s nose. "Abolitionist can’t resist picking things up. Might be worth four bits! That’s what an abolitionist thinks, ’cause