Wherein 13 year old twin sisters Marrant and Mary Alderton share their thoughts about moving to Deadwood in 1876 with their blind typesetter and writer mother Grace and newspaper editor savvy businessman Wyatt.
This place has driven the entire family mad! First of all Mother sensibly did not like the abode hovel building we were abiding within and so we had to move which I had hoped oh so sincerely would mean back to Colorado as, if one is going to go through the bother of packing up and placing things on a wagon, one might as well get on with it and go somewhere a bit more settled and civilized but NOOOOOO where did we go? You will not believe it, nor did I.. across the street! Yes, all that work and there we are, across the way smushed between a boarding house and a restaurant. This is madness.
True, it is an improvement if we must stay. The house is bigger though still I must share the room with Marrant and her paints but we are near the river which is better than near the door to the mine with all those dirty miners and the shooting range with all the loud bangs night and day. And the man who runs the boarding house is very handsome. And not wed. He is a little old, but not so much. I believe he must have money to run a boarding house. We are also near Auntie Bluebird's kitchen and she is much nicer than America though even darker skinned. And her food is delicious. If from her I can learn to cook, surely I will be able to find a husband worthy of me.
But I wander from the madness. Mother, Father, America and Marrant are all mad. They insist I have done awful things. Am I gone mad also? No one will tell me what exactly it was that I did. Father eyes me sternly in that manner he has and says, "You know what you have done," and "I should expect this from your sister, not from you." Then he begins to raise his voice and say something about boys and young girls and turns red and storms out. Mother merely nods in agreement with Father and tells me I must not "talk back" when all I do is ask for an explanation. America, to be expected, says nothing but laughs in that silent way she has, right behind Mother and Father! Marrant says I did wander to the river in my sleep and met up with a boy! Surely I would remember that!
My punishment is not so dreadful anyways, except the disappointment of Papa who has never before raised his voice at me, his favorite I am sure. And it is fine to see Marrant doing my chores as I sit in my room and read my cooking book and magazine - I do not really need to leave and it is only another day before I can. Papa has forgotten about the writing of the entire Bible, which is good as I did run out of papers and inks rather fast. Further, I did slip out to a baking contest, Father thinking I was Marrant. She was left behind, doing my chores and hers, muttering and kicking things as so she did, while America grinned and Mother felt her way around the new home. They are mad.
Deadwood - located in Phoenix Pass, Second Life (not really in South Dakota)
It is not Fair! I was only playing with Frederick who is Robinson Crusoe (I must find a copy of the book to see if there is a Mother Crusoe). We did nothing wrong. Out on his raft on the river, doing nothing wrong. Up comes this lady, who I asked him was she his mama? He understood and indicated no. She is ordering us off the raft, out of the river and saying soldiers are coming to tear down the little tiny dam he made.
What possible harm can a dam do anyway?
I try to tell him about the soldiers. Of course, he thinks I mean we should play soldiers. But he is fairly smart for a boy who does not speak English. After we get off, up comes this ugly man. He says Indians are coming. So I have to tell that to Frederick. Of course, he thinks I mean we should play Indians. He is such a child.
Then the man says he will defend us from Indians only if I give him Buttercup to eat. What?!!! No!!!! Up comes another man, who starts using swear words at the other man. Then they both have this look upon them as if which they are going to spit or punch, as I have seen the cats back home do to each other if there is a food bowl in between them.
The lady has me and Frederick go into the laundry house, which is clean I must say, but very wet. (I wonder, is that what happens if you have a laundry? There is water everywhere? And where was the soap?) The lady comes in too and bolts the door and then BANG there are guns firing. Buttercup goes behind the stove - what a guard dog she would be. Frederick dives behind some boxes and I am under a bed. The lady, I do not know where she went. Upon the floor I think. After a while there is silence. What an adventure!
Me and Frederick crawls out and from the window we can see one man on the ground and the other standing there. It is the dog EATER! I shriek and run back in, dragging Buttercup who had followed me. The lady says it is fine, the man has gone away. But then I see something as bad, perhaps worse. The shape of America approaching!
Shove Buttercup again behind the stove, and me dives beneath the bed. For what seems hours I do hide, not so in fear that America would harm me physically. But tattle she will. She thinks she is Mama and Papa in one. And yes, certain enough eventually she is right inside the laundry house. I hide as best I can, holding my breath. Frederick hides also, I think as because he senses my fears. I am in fears she finds my wool dress sopped again, she will blab to Mama and Papa and I will be never let out again for the rest of my life which would be horrid.
To be in that house with only Mary to talk to, and only the walls to see! When it is so much more interesting out here. Not so beautiful, perhaps, as Colorado. But close. Things are green and there are deer and people, and one can only draw and paint so much looking outside a window which if one complains of its cleanliness, one must clean it oneself with a rag handed to one by a smirking America who will also say something smirking from her lips.
But of course, the lady who helped us shows America where I am and there is naught to do but emerge from beneath the bed. I think America's eyes will explode from her head when she points at my skirt and my shoes, of course, are ruined. Thank goodness I found my eyeglasses which had slipped from my ears yet again, but slid down my blouse and were caught on my underwears rather than floating away down the river! Should that have happened it would have been the end for me! Blinded again, for I cannot see beyond my nose without them and as has been told me over and over and over, they cost a fortune.
America after splathering my ears with sharp words of this and that sends me and Buttercup home ahead of her, shouting behind us as we go-- I think she could have beat me home but she considers herself a grown up though I think she is but four or five years older than Mary and me. Her false dignity, I thought, had saved me!
As into the house I went, there was father asleep in his chair - ah good! But no, he awoke - ah bad! But he calls me Mary! Aha, in a flash I see a way to keep myself from being imprisoned forever. Mary does not want to leave the house anyway, so what bother to her would it be? And so I continue to encourage him in his confusion, and - as Mary - I confess to my wrong-doing and suggest my own punishment, to be housebound. Ah, good!
Outside I hear America talking to the dog and so into Mary's and my room I do run, careful not to awaken her. As I remove my drenched clothing and dry off, then prepare for bed, I hear America and Father - the truth of my identity may be revealed. Ah, bad!
But no, Father says he knows his daughters and he will not be corrected - hurrah! I am saved! It is hard not to smirk and smile as I look down at my sleeping sister, who has so often turned things around on me, passing her own naughty doings off as mine - and so I do smirk and smile as I slip into my bed.
And then I hear America suggest to Father that while Mary is room bound, I, Marrant Alderton, am to do her chores as well as my own!!! This is not FAIR, for this will as good as confine me also to the house as long as Mary is! I believe in my heart of hearts, America works for the devil!
It is not FAIR, it is NOT fair! I am determined I shall find a way out for if I am housebound, I shall go mad!
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