chapter one I''d never been this cold. Despite the three pairs of stockings on my feet, I no longer felt my toes. Nor could I feel my hands with two pairs of mittens on them. I looked down at my hands from time to time to reassure myself that I still held the market basket. It was not as heavy as I hoped nor as full as my employers would have wished. The trains had stopped running days ago. Snowdrifts up to ten feet high blocked their path. It was the worst winter in my memory or in the memory of anyone I knew.
We all felt the pinch from the Cold Storm of 1857. December had been snowy, but it seemed that January was taking it upon itself to prove it could surpass the very worst of weather the last year or even the last decade had to offer. Here in Amherst, the mercury was twenty degrees below zero, but I also heard that the same temperatures were crippling points as far south as Washington. The cold was torture here, but at least we expected harsh winters. It must have come as a shock to the Southern belles and fine gentlemen in the capital. I was grateful Horace, the Dickinsons'' grounds keeper, had shoveled a path from the street to both the front and back doors of the homestead. Without that cleared path, my skirt would have been soaked through in no time at all. Even so it was narrow, just wide enough for one man to pass, so I had to grip my skirts and hold the market basket out in front of myself like I was making some sort of offering to the winter gods that caused this weather.
The way I held my arms out reminded me of the mummy illustrations in the volume of ancient Egyptian history in Mr. Dickinson''s library. Margaret O''Brien, the head maid at the homestead, met me at the back door that led into the laundry. She took the basket from my hands so quickly I felt a sharp pain in my stiff fingers. "Get in here before you let the heat out," she said in her Irish lilt. I stepped into the laundry and made sure the back door was firmly closed behind me. I placed the heavy blanket back in its place at the foot of the door to keep out the draft. I removed my bonnet, cloak, mittens, boots, and two pairs of stockings, which I tucked into the boots.
When I was out of the boots, I changed into my house shoes. It was a relief to not be buried under so much fabric, but much of the cold that the cloak held at bay hit me like an icy wave crashing into Boston Harbor. In the kitchen Margaret unpacked the basket. "Where is my molasses? And where is the cinnamon I asked for?" Emily Dickinson came into the kitchen just then, quietly and lightly as she always did. She moved around the place like a house wren that popped up here and there on an unexpected branch in the garden. Emily was the eldest daughter in the house and the most puzzling of the Dickinsons. While her sister, Miss Lavinia, was straightforward and direct, Emily tended to weave her thoughts into verse and she felt no need to explain in common language their meaning or purpose. "Willa," she said with a smile.
"You''re back. You must be frozen to your very bones. Margaret, set a stool by the stove, so she can warm herself." Grudgingly, Margaret started to walk to the stool. I hurried on unsteady feet stiff with cold. "There is no need. As soon as I start working, I will warm up quickly." Emily eyed me as if she was not so sure of that, but to my relief, she didn''t argue with me.
It was my wish not to annoy Margaret any more with my unusual friendship with Emily than she was already. The more special treatment that Emily gave me as her friend, the more Margaret O''Brien resented me. I knew a second maid claiming an upper-class educated young lady as a friend was unexpected to say the least. However, over the last two years that I had worked in the Dickinson home, Emily had become my friend as much as she could be, considering our stations in life, and I was appreciative for the bond. She was there when I lost my brother, Henry, and I would always be grateful to her for that. Emily looked over the items that Margaret unpacked from the basket. "Where is my coconut?" I started to boil water on the stove to wash the breakfast dishes that I had left undone to run to the market. Usually, the market boy delivered to the homestead.
With the harsh weather, all deliveries save the milkman had stopped. That was a blessing as it was so cold that our cow had stopped producing milk. "I''m sorry, Miss Dickinson," I said. "But the grocer told me that there was no coconut in all of Amherst. With the cold, the trains can''t make it in. The rails are too icy for clear passage, and the ones that are not icy are blocked with fallen trees or feet of snow." Emily sighed. "I suppose there go my plans to make a coconut cake for supper in order to raise all of our spirits.
I was very much looking forward to doing that. Baking is the very best way for me to let my mind wander and discover new poems that are waiting to be written. Baking and being in the garden at least. It seems with this weather that option is off the table as well." "We have the ingredients for your black cake," Margaret chimed in. "I believe there is just enough molasses left. You can bake that and let your mind wander to your heart''s content." She added this last bit with a touch of disapproval in her voice that Emily either didn''t notice or simply didn''t care about.
I guessed the latter as there was very little that my mistress missed. "Are we nearly out of molasses too?" Emily asked. "What is the world coming to?" Margaret shook her head. It was times like this when I longed to be able to read her thoughts. I was certain that she had a few things that she wished she could say about Emily''s comment. Emily clicked her tongue as if in dismay. "What will become of us when there is no molasses or coconut?" I bit the inside of my lip to stop myself from saying many people live without these luxuries. In fact, I had never even known of coconuts until I began working at the Dickinson home.
They were so exotic to me. Having grown up with nothing gave me a perspective that Emily didn''t have. I did not hold it against my friend, but it was a painful reminder of the vast chasm between our life experiences. "I''ll make some sort of pound cake instead," Emily declared. "Something simple, yet bright and festive. We should save the molasses as there is no telling when we will get more." "Surely, this cold can''t go on for more than a day or two more," Margaret said. "You have said that for two weeks, Margaret, and it has given no indication of stopping.
The papers say it could go into March. Father has been watching the barometer in his office and makes doom-filled pronouncements about the weather to come." Margaret sniffed. "I don''t know how that gadget of gears and dials can predict the weather. Only a well-aged farmer can do so accurately." She said this like that was all she had to say on the matter. "It''s science, Margaret, and is much more reliable than an old farmer licking his finger and holding it up in the wind. Father sounded quite confident about the weather to come.
" Margaret crossed herself. "Let''s all pray that it doesn''t come to that." Margaret would have never made that gesture in front of any other member of the Dickinson family because it would only be a reminder that she was Irish Catholic at heart. It would make their Calvinist sensibilities most uncomfortable. As Emily had no interest in organized religion and followed a belief system of her own creation, it had no effect on her. She didn''t even mind that I was raised Baptist, which some members of the Dickinsons'' church found appalling. Margaret caught me listening to their conversation. "Willa, get on with the dishes and when that is done, dust and polish in the parlor as long as the family is not in the room.
" I nodded and set to work. The hot water seeped into my frozen skin, and it was both painful and welcome. Shortly after Margaret and I returned to our daily tasks, Emily left the kitchen, saying she would be back in the late morning to bake her pound cake, as they did not take as much time to make as her coconut cake would have. When I finished the dishes and had dried them and tucked them away, I went through the dining room into the parlor. I was happy to see that everything in the dining room was polished and put away. Typically, that was my task, but Margaret had taken it upon herself when I was at the market. I would thank her for it later even though she would outwardly scoff at the gratitude while inwardly enjoying it. I was just stepping into the family parlor when the terrifying scent of smoke tickled my nose.
I hurried inside the front parlor to find an ember from the fireplace had made its way through the screen and smoldered on the edge of the carpet. I stamped it out with my shoe with my heart beating out of my chest. Had I not been there at that very time, there was no telling what would have happened. I pulled my foot away from the spot and there was the faintest of burns no larger than a penny on the colorful carpet. I wondered how I could remove the stain without anyone being the wiser. My hopes to keep the incident quiet were dashed when Mr. Dickinson stormed into the room. "Do I smell something burning?" Emily and Miss Lavinia were just steps behind him.
Mr. Dickinson was not a large man but formidable all the same. He had a receding hairline, and what hair he had on the sides of his head stuck ou.