She also insisted on providing Judy with several well-made dresses that no longer fit her own dwindling frame and bought her a new pair of stylish shoes, which Judy wore indoors but left, wrapped in paper, in the Cooks’ kitchen whenever she returned to Dogtown. Grateful as she was for the luxuries of her life in town, Judy would not agree to move into the Cooks’ house. No matter how often Martha pressed, and regardless of the fact that the bedroom beside the kitchen was always warm, and the bed was far better than her own, she resisted “living in.” Day work seemed more dignified and besides, Greyling didn’t get along with the house cat, and the dog was never far from Judy’s side, wherever she went.
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As their first summer together ended, Martha began to read from a well-known series of books written by a distant kinswoman of hers, Sarah Maria Hastings.
Mrs. Hastings’s volumes contained all manner of writing: poems, letters, essays, and heartrending stories about the outrages and difficulties of women’s lives. One particular tale of a wife in a loveless and childless marriage set Martha to such a fit of weeping that Judy began to cast a wondering eye at the judge. Martha never spoke ill of her husband and Judy had no other reason to think him anything but an exemplary man. He was mostly unknown to her since he traveled a good deal, and when he was in town he never took his midday meal at home. But now, these facts fed her growing suspicion that there was something amiss, and Martha’s conjugal situation was often in her mind as she followed the roads in and out of Dogtown.
On the Saturdays when Judy remained up-country, she would take long walks to clear her mind. Following overgrown trails and shortcuts that she knew as well as the inside of her own house, she reveled in the solitude and peace of the woods. But in truth, nearly every path was strewn with memories, some trivial, some momentous. There was the fallen tree where she’d once seen a she-skunk leading a litter of seven tiny babies, their striped tails bobbing in a merry row. A hollow tree marked the spot where Sammy Stanley had stopped her once, to ask if she’d had a dollar to change for ten dimes. Such a strange child, she remembered.
“How is your grandmother’s health?” she’d asked, unable to think of any other question for a boy who lived in a brothel.
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He’d stared like she had grown an extra eye, and bolted from her.
There were changes in Dogtown’s landscape from
season to season, and from year to year: trees downed, mush-rooms plentiful, or squirrels scarce. And yet, the forest was always the same. Perhaps that was why Judy could never fix the sequence of her out-of-doors memories: Had she met Sammy before or after the day she’d spotted the two poor doxies who lived at the Stanley house, too? She recalled that they were sitting on the big cracked grindstone beside one of the old abandoned houses. Easter had told her a few things about them she’d just as soon never have heard, so she’d pretended not to see Molly and Sally. But the picture of the tall dark head and the pale little blonde whispering together in the sunlight was still vivid in her mind’s eye.
As was the day she came across Oliver and Polly kissing beside the natural edifice called Peter’s Pulpit, among the tallest of the famous Dogtown boulders. When the young people saw her, they had let go of each other with a quick flutter, like a pair of birds flushed out of the brush.
“Hello, Judy,” Oliver said, a little too loudly.
Polly put her hands behind her and dropped a silent curtsy.
Judy felt tongue-tied but managed to say, “Good
afternoon, Oliver. Hello, Polly.” She’d wanted to reassure Polly that her reputation was in no danger from her, but said only, “I’d best be going,” and hurried away, confused by a sudden burst of anguish and longing. Why on earth should their happiness upset her?
Judy considered herself a reconciled old maid, but in
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her bed that night, she realized that she was still smarting from the image of the young lovers. Judy pulled the dog up from her usual place behind her knees and pressed her nose into the musty warmth. “Woe is me,” she said, mocking her own moodiness. “Woe is me.”
When Judy next saw Easter Carter, she said, “I think Oliver Younger may be keeping company with Polly.”
Easter grinned. “Yes, dearie. John Wharf used to come up here to give them a chance at each other. He was counting on the boy taking care of her once he passed away.
I used to tell him there wasn’t a safer wager on land or sea.”
“You knew that?” Judy said. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I figured you’d find out soon enough. Besides, I’m not that sort of a gossip.”
“But Easter, it’s me. It’s Judy.”