Esther’s Pillow: The Tar and Feathering of Margaret Chambers. Marlin Fitzwater

      “Always before we had your wife,” Aaron said with a smile.

      “I mean any of these schools around here,” Ed said. “That Chambers family hasn’t ever amounted to much, and it never will.”

      “Well, as long as she sticks to the basics, it shouldn’t be too bad,” Aaron said. “I never knew the Chambers to be church people, but Chambers built that schoolhouse a few years ago, so I figure his daughter has a right to teach there.”

      Aaron and Ed were sitting on the same side of the picnic table, Ed in his Sears overalls with gold buttons, two buttons on each side undone to allow room for his ample stomach. When Ed twisted his hips sideways to get his legs under the table, the side flaps fell open, as they always did, giving the children a glimpse of his cream-colored cotton underwear just under the tail of his shirt.

      The two men looked out across Elmo Funk’s land, open from the house to the two-story barn, painted a bright red and hiding all of Elmo’s equipment. Elmo kept a clean piece of land, no rusted hay rakes or other machinery was within sight of the house. Like most farms, Elmo didn’t exactly have a yard, but he had planted rye and brome grass around the house and barn. His horses had pulled the hay sickle cutter through it the week before, so that each blade of grass stood erect as if smeared with Wildroot. Using your horses to cut ornamental grass was considered a waste by most farmers, and downright extravagant by some. Elmo had even allowed Mrs. Funk to plant some geraniums in his vegetable garden, which showed a red splotch among the potatoes and cabbage, standing out to visitors like measles on a baby’s back. The flowers only accentuated the starkness of the prairie, which ran uninterrupted from the barn to the horizon, a rolling shimmering brown in late summer. Trees just didn’t seem to grow in these environments, although there was talk of a hedge apple tree that could grow anywhere, almost without water, that had been used to slow the dust storms in Oklahoma, and that might be planted along the roads to slow the southeasterly winds, generally thought to be the most destructive. No, this was flat land, where a jackrabbit could be seen for three hundred yards.

      Aaron and Ed looked at the nakedness of the land and felt a sense of pride in the work that had cleared the trees, tilled the soil, and transformed the stones from the fields into fences that would last an eternity. The primary benchmarks for a productive life in Nickerly County were a well-kept farm and a full church. The Nickerly Journal carried some news of the world, which of course led to the discussion of Roosevelt and Taft, but most of the news focused on weddings, funerals, harvests, and decisions of the school boards and township supervisors. Fashions were prescribed by custom and by whatever was available at the local dry goods store. Travel was limited to day trips, mostly to Salina or Ellsworth.

      Families never talked about what they wanted out of life because the answer was life itself. The Bible set forth a series of yardsticks for measuring the quality of a life and therefore gave it meaning. As the arbiter of biblical law, the Reverend Aaron was perhaps the strongest influence in establishing acceptable behavior. Worthy ambitions were most likely to center on a large family, regular church attendance, and daily devotions.

      Ed Garvey set most of the secular standards for living in Nickerly County through the work of the mill, turning produce into baking flour and cash, the only two meaningful currencies. Wealth was measured in acres of land owned and bushels of wheat produced, but extravagance was carefully avoided. Few people displayed a new carriage, a parasol, or some other whimsical purchase that indicated a trip had been made to Salina. These frivolities were normally enjoyed in private because the right hand of the Lord, the Reverend Aaron Langston, was quick to remind everyone of the sins of sloth, avarice, pride, and anything sensual. Thus the only rewards for achievement related to the strictness of personal behavior. The more you repressed your behavior, the greater the achievement.

      There was an element of pride, however, that slipped into one of the most basic elements of farm life, butchering. Every year the Langstons, like most farmers, butchered one cow, one pig, and one sheep, thus providing them with a year of meats, kept in the Nickerly ice house.

      The ice house operator was also the butcher, a small quiet man named Jack Butter, who had killed, opened, and dressed most of the meat in his ice house. Some farmers did their own, but Jack was known to cut his animals leaner than most farmers could, and then save more fat for soap or other by-products. Also, Jack gave a 10 percent discount on storage at the ice house if he was the butcher.

      Butchering was an all-day event of some celebration in the farm community. Ray and Jay would often attend their neighbors’ butchering, and neighborhood kids of every stripe and size would come to the Langstons for theirs. The butchering had its own set of rituals. Jack Butter would station the heifer just below the block and tackle hanging from the crown of the barn. He would tie the rope halter to the barn door, then step back for the prayer. Aaron blessed the harvest and the animals, ending his prayer with “Bless this food for its extended uses.” Then Jack Butter would walk over to the cow, and with one clean and fast stroke, plunge his knife into its thick neck. Its front knees would buckle. Slowly the huge beast would twist and turn toward the ground. Its hind legs would become like stone, simply falling to the side. A large pool of blood would form, but almost before the tail hit the ground, the head was severed, the throat was fully cut, the pulley hook was inserted, and Jack, Aaron, and Ray were putting all their weight on the block and tackle to raise the cow off the ground and expose its belly for Jack Butter to do his work. It was all so fast and methodical that the cow never seemed to be in any pain. It was as if the cow knew its destiny and accepted it. For the Langstons, it was a celebration, with Ivy getting ready to save and store and use every spare part of the animal, giving thanks for their abundant good fortune. The butchering was a harbinger of family meals, good health, and freedom from hunger.

      As Jack Butter made his first thrust into the torso of the cow, it fell open from throat to tail as if unzipped, the entrails tumbling out in different colors. The children gasped. Then Jack reached into the smorgasbord of intestines, pulled out a kidney, cut it off from the stomach, and tossed it out in the dirt. Aaron kicked it around with his foot a little, to soak up the wet blood and other fluids, then put it to his lips and inflated it as easily as a penny balloon.

      “Here, boys,” Aaron said, as he tossed it to the ground, and gave it the first kick. Thrilled with their new soccer ball, the children kicked the kidney around the yard and down by the granary, as Jack finished the butcher. Several days later, the kidney was still down by the corn field, dry as dirt and covered by flies.

      Butchering contained the kinds of lessons that every child had to learn, and they did so with some enthusiasm. School, on the other hand, was a necessary evil to most families and viewed in practical terms. Of course, there was a growing demand for a mathematical expertise—at least if anyone wanted to know the changing prices for corn, hogs, and wheat—but seven or eight years of school seemed more than enough to master the most important lessons: to memorize the Ten Commandments and learn to make moral decisions. Aaron and Ed both assumed that the new schoolteacher understood these principles of education; it was her family history that concerned them.

      “We’ll see how she does,” Ed said. “Wait till the first Literary, then we’ll see what happens.”

Chapter Four

      Margaret Chambers knew it was Ileen because the screen door didn’t slam. It was allowed to close gently, as if slowed by the body of a cat slipping and twisting through the opening. Ileen Chambers walked softly in the world and doors closed gently behind her.

      Ileen maneuvered through the mud room, sidestepping the milk bucket and her father’s rubber overboots with the tin clasps. She noticed that her parents’ coats were gone from their nail hooks and realized she must have plenty of time before the Literary. Wherever her parents were, they would not miss Margaret’s first Literary as a teacher. Ileen was seventeen and had not gone to Literary since she was in high school, providing her mother with another explanation for Ileen’s lack of a husband: lack of exposure. But why did she need exposure in a community where she already knew everyone?

      “Is that you?” Margaret called out