Remember This

The clock in the hallway chimes…

Ding…Ding…

Nothing changes in Sprague except the seasons. And even that is a predictable change. Summer will pass, the days will darken and become colder, the water will freeze in the pasture pond. The sparrows will fly away, the frogs will sleep, the sharp winter wind will blow. Babies will arrive and Ancients will leave but stay with us depending on the kindness of our memories.

But all that is remembered of Eliza Fullquartz Ekins is based on a local newspaper article from 1912, entitled…

Sprague Woman Found Dead in Barn.

This would have irked Eliza. As the daughter of Oregon pioneers - to be called a "Sprague Woman" was an affront! The article goes on to insinuate Eliza was murdered by her teenage son who went on to become a periodontist in Wenatchee. First of all, Eliza is not dead - she's just visiting Pluto.

Eliza knew all the stories of the night sky, so of course she named her barn Pluto after the furthest planet. It's true, Eliza was found on her back inside Pluto. Who knows how long she was there, unable to move with not a soul around for miles. But one thing is sure - it wasn't a typical mishap: Eliza knew every square inch of her barn. After all, she razed that barn herself (with expert help from her Mennonite neighbors).

It was the partnership between her frail body and bullying brain that failed her. "Come on, get up, you have hungry animals!" Refusing to cooperate, she collapsed on the hay, done taking any further orders. It took all of Eliza's indomitable will to stay conscious, while slipping into what is called… The Great Review.

The French Prarie. Eliza is nine, on horseback, next to Brother, Ahio, fifteen. It's their shift to drive the great band of sheep into Oregon…four hundred of them, kicking up dust to the point of blinding the team. Two large wagons, to each of which five yoke of oxen were attached. It was going as well as this kind of venture can until they are stopped in their tracks by a raging river. Eliza and Ahio look at each other. What's expected is impossible. A voice inside Eliza says, "Remember this. What happened to the sheep on the river wasn't your fault."

Eliza is now twelve as she waits on a stoop outside Uncle Joe's store in the town her father named "Amity" because its members needed reminding to "get along." A shadow blocks the sun. The face of a Nez Perce Native looks down on her. She was told to call for Watch the attack dog…"should any Indian ever approach you." But she holds his gaze, lost in his kind eyes. She doesn't call for Watch."Can I go with you?" But he continues to walk. The Voice inside her says, "He spared your life. Remember this."

The sun is up. Roy should come out soon. But Eliza is not thinking of help now. She's not thinking at all…

Mrs. Murray wallops Lou's legs with a dead black snake when Eliza caught up. "Don't touch my sister!" The Murray's were the worst of humans - a terrible clan that tormented the community. WHACK! "That'll teach ya to mess with my geese, Urchin!" Lou's legs bled. At first Eliza screamed for Watch but soon remembered he was locked up, so she picked up an axe and ran toward them. Eliza glares at her, axe in striking position. "This your axe, Mrs. Murray? Shouldn't leave it lying around." Mrs. Murray dropped the snake so hard it bounced.

Eliza is in Portland far from the Murrays and the ranch and the family. She performs at Elocution class in her new boarding school, St. Helens Hall….

"…And the dragon will come when he hears the drum at a minute or two to two today, at a minute or two to two."

Red hearts are pinned on the girls over their tafetta uniforms. Red bows and ribbons are donned in. honor of St. Valentine's. They cheer Eliza, tossing Valentines, "Happy Birthday Eliza!" The voice inside her says, "Moments of joy are fleeting. Remember this."

Eliza is brutally returned to the moment by a sunbeam peircing down from the rafter window. This particular sunbeam is on a mission. It bathes Eliza like a long ago mother from a long ago moment that she can't conjure to her memory of she tried. The brightness blinds. Her mind negotiates.

"Say, I can't go anywhere. Roy needs to come hlep me water and hay these animals. I'm waiting right here. No, I can't go with you."

Christmas Eve at the Amity ranch. Eliza, seventeen, is home from boarding school, more refined than her earlier self. Her aunts from the wagon train glide through different rooms lighting oil to the lamps. Gunshots pop from outside somehwere. "The Murrays are at it again." Lou yells for them to stop. Eliza's aunts had crossed six states with oxen, sheep, horses, Indians. No gunshot from the Murrays could scare them. The neighbors wander inside and help themselves to the spread of food on the long table. Eliza straightens her spine at the entrance of Mother. Adeline Fullquartz is regal and rigid-spined and ever toughened by the wagon train journey from the east…and life afterwards. Whatever unspeakable things she has witnessed will go with her to her grave.

A young man about thirty two, follows behind Mrs. Fullquartz like an errant puppy.

"Eliza, this is Claudius Ekins. He's staying at the Mercer place. He's come all the way from County Mayo. Get up and introduce him to people, rather than sit like a wallflower."

The memory of meeting Claude jarred Eliza back to the moment. She realizes she didn't like Claude from that moment. He was hunting for a pretty young wife to tend house and Eliza wanted more. It was never her plan to be uprooted from her sisters and aunts and father only to end up in Sprague. Just like it was never in her plan to be lying on her back staring at the rafters.

In Pluto, the animals are letting her know what they think. An orchestra builds to a crescendo of hunger. She registers the specific moooo of Sean, her steer with a wart problem. Eliza wants to yell, "Roy, where the hell are you?" but finds it impossible to use her words. 

Sunday. Eliza almost runs along Third Street with her three children and Lou's children who she's rearing -like a line of ducks, each carrying their share of feed when a crowd of churchgoers emerge from Calvary Chapel and pull their typical looks and whispers. She wants to call out, "That's right, we're going to burn in hell!" But her children need to fit in at school and they already don't. Eliza is a divorced woman. 

"We're not like other people, are we?" The voice that speaks to her is her daughter, Myra. 

"No, my dear. And that's a good thing."

Eliza tries to end this Great Review herself!

"Let me up! I need to water the hen shed! Who's going to bring in the clothes off the zoooaaa noo plaaa ney hahh naaa raam… "

It came from inside her and it was bigger than her. 

"Listen here! My steer needs me to give him his mewaaodhayaaooama….." 

All logic leaving, all responsibilities dissolving, Eliza would fight this to the death if her best memory yet didn't appear.

Eliza holds a baby, surrounded by her three and Mary's five children, all looking up in wonder while they watch a team of horses and Mennonite men raise the roof on Pluto. Myra says, "How do they do it, Auntie?" Eliza has to remind her, "I'm your mama, I'm their auntie." The children look at her. A voice says "You are Mother to all. Remember!"

…In her best dress, Eliza exits the notary in the Masonic Hall building on 111 Sprague Avenue. She may be smiling ear to ear but Lorna Tufts and scrawny Aurora frown at her from across the street. "That this uppity Oregon woman thinks she can have her cake and eat it too!" Divorce was unthinkable in 1887! The scandal follows her around like an old dog. Eliza calls to the miserable lookey loos, "It's a great day to be free, isn't it?" And the voice in her head agrees. "Remember this!" She grins all the way to the riverboat.

Yesterday. Eliza, fifty six, drives a motorcar up busy Sprague Avenue. She parks by the newsstand and flies out, excited to buy today's paper from Red, the paperboy. There it is!

ROOSEVELT'S NEW PROGRESSIVE PARTY

She can't contain herself. "We did it! We did it! We have a new party! A progressive party! It's a victorious today! Red, this is swell as hell!"

"My pop says stuff like that don't affect us folks."

"Your pop is wrong, Red."

She reads to him aloud, ''The Progressive party, believing that no people can justly claim to be a true democracy which denies political rights on account of sex, pledges itself to the task of securing equal suffrage to men and women alike. "

"Red, that means I'll be voting in the next election but say, if I die today I was part of it! Part of a great, great thing! Women have the vote!"

Eliza is still on her back inside Pluto. She was part of it. Part of a great greaet thing.

What a to-do to die today at a minute or two to two…

The clock in the hallway chimes…

Ding…Ding.

The sparrows will fly away, the frogs will sleep, the sharp winter wind will blow. Babies will arrive and Ancients will leave but stay with us depending on the kindness of our memories. All the August sights and sounds and smells will be left behind. Eliza's faded-red Dutch barn called Pluto will sit untouched, except to rot and decay like us. But as we do our best, it will do its best to stand as long as it can, in remembrance of its owner who relished life…

Up until that last warm pesky Sunbeam escorted her Home