Esther’s Pillow
The Tar and Feathering of Margaret Chambers
A Novel by
Marlin Fitzwater
CCB Publishing British Columbia, Canada
Esther’s Pillow: The Tar and Feathering of Margaret Chambers
Copyright © 2011 by Marlin Fitzwater
ISBN-13 978-1-926918-82-2
Second Edition
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Fitzwater, Marlin, 1942-
Esther’s pillow [electronic resource] : the tar and feathering of Margaret
Chambers : a novel / by Marlin Fitzwater. – 2nd ed.
Electronic monograph in PDF format.
ISBN 978-1-926918-82-2
Also available in print format.
I. Title.
PS3606.I89E88 2011a 813'.6 C2011-905827-8
Cover Art by Judy Ward
Esther’s Pillow was first published in 2001 by PublicAffairs Books, a division of Perseus Books Group, LLC.
Disclaimer: This is a work of historical fiction. It is based on actual events but many of the characters, events, motives and relationships in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the express written permission of the publisher.
| Publisher: | CCB Publishing |
| British Columbia, Canada | |
| www.ccbpublishing.com |
Dedication For My Brother
CONTENTS
Margaret Chambers burst out the front door and practically flew down the stone steps of the College of Emporia. She was clutched by a sudden, childish desire to twirl in circles, flinging her arms out from her sides and whooping loudly, but she caught herself, slowed her pace, and judiciously moved away from the College building. She had done it. She had taken her last test to become a teacher. She was through.
Margaret turned and walked past the small white wooden houses that framed the college grounds. About halfway down the block she came to the Wickham Lumber Yard bench, which had been placed along the curb as a rest stop for students, and which gave all visitors to the College a solid hint about where to buy their lumber and hardware needs. The bench was an advertisement. Many young people came to Emporia to attend the College, and their parents comprised an expanding market of customers who could take home a load of lumber or at least a barrel of nails for the year ahead. The Wickham Lumber Yard got good business from these visitors, selling them harnesses and yokes for teams of horses and buggies. The new automobiles gave this venture an uncertain future, but it still took horses to till the fields and bring in the crops, and many people thought automobiles were simply a gadget for the rich anyway. Several of Wickham’s new customers had automobiles and horses, and remarked how much they appreciated the new benches near the College of Emporia.
Margaret slipped onto the Wickham bench and took a deep breath of the spring evening. It was her first chance to relax and think of her future, of starting a new school year in Nickerly County, of returning to live with her family, especially her older sister Ileen who had never left home, but who wrote her religiously for the two years it took to get the teaching degree. It was a satisfying feeling, warm and secure, to know that she had pioneered a new family achievement, a college education. Emporia wasn’t a four-year college, but two years were more than enough to teach, and not many women had accomplished that. Indeed, there were only three women among the fifty-seven students at the College. And of the three or four county teachers she had met in Nickerly, none had been to college. Most teachers had never even graduated from high school, but had been picked by local township supervisors for the job and given a certificate. Margaret closed her eyes and relaxed, glad that she had worn her black jacket because it picked up the remaining sun and warmed her shoulders.
There were the normal sounds of evening activity, a carriage down the street rambling over the cobblestones and kicking up dust, two students chattering as they walked away from her toward the College. She thought she recognized them but didn’t care enough to really look. Birds seemed to be all around her, darting into the branches, bouncing under the spirea bushes. That rustle in the shrubs must have been a squirrel. They were reassuring sounds, the noise of a secure world that suited Margaret like a handmade quilt in which every familiar patch had been hand stitched, known by its source, loved for its memories.
When someone’s hand appeared