A Preacher and His Wife

Chapter Eleven

Come June, the heat became brutally heavy and hard to bear, and though it did not rain nearly as much as it did back in Ireland, the air still felt wet, and by mid-morning, both Grace and I were always drenched.

There were many insects in the new world that would bite at our skin and leave spots that itched something awful no matter what we tried putting on them. There was not a handful of these insects like back home, but hundreds—if not thousands—of them. Sometimes we could see a thick dark fog ahead, only when we got to the cloud we found it to be a swarm of the pests.

They did not sleep either during the day or the night, so there was no refuge. They were always upon us and seemed to go for the ears, especially when we lay down for the night. The sound they made (a little hum) prevented true rest, which, in turn, made us both irritable.

I was never a hunting man, nor a fishing man, except that one time. As a general rule, I despised the idea of taking life.

I remembered clearly the day I learned meat was dead animals. I cried, and my father laughed at me, and my mother tried to soothe me, but my father forbade her because he didn't want to encourage his son's frailty. All of this being said, I killed as many of those awful buzzing things as I possibly could. And it brought me great pleasure each time I caught one.

Grace was just as miserable as I was, I am sure, but she held herself together better. Not once did she shout in frustration at the insects. I did this. Many times.

I learned that Grace had no patience for impatience. "Mr. Moore. You're wasting your breath, they can't understand ye."

I also learned that Grace was afraid of snakes, for, until that month, neither of us had ever seen one before. She shouted, louder than I had heard her yet, "Mr. Moore! Mr. Moore!"

I came quickly, for I had been relieving myself in the woods and found Grace to have climbed atop the cart. She was in such a state I thought it must be Indians or else bandits, but she pointed into the grass, and I saw the snake. It was smaller than I had imagined it would be, skinnier too.

She wanted me to get rid of the thing, and so I tried to pick it up, but it was so fast that it frightened even me and also, I did not know if this was a venomous type or not and so I used a branch to flick it away.

I wondered if Grace was afraid of it because it had a strange way of moving and could sneak up on us easily or if her fear came from the Bible and knowing that Satan took the form of a snake to tempt Eve.

Whatever the reason for her fear, poor Grace encountered a snake a few times each week from thereon out. I couldn't tell if the snakes had actually been around us the whole journey and only now Grace was looking for them or if there were more of them now, given the heat and the territory we found ourselves in.

One night was particularly awful; a snake found its way into the blankets.

Being woken by the sound of your wife screaming is perhaps the most frightening way to be pulled from sleep.

Though Grace had kept her composure through many discomforts, she did not stay together that night. She shouted into the darkness, and it was not the most empathetic response, but I was in a bad way from being woken so suddenly and so forcefully, and so I said to her the same thing she'd said to me about the mosquitoes. "You're wasting your breath, it can't understand you."

After that night, our evening prayer always included: "And please keep the snakes away from Grace." I cannot speak to why, but God did not always listen to that part.

There were also some plants that were poisonous but so potent that you didn't have to eat them to be affected. Just walking past them or sleeping near them was enough to have your skin break out in itchy and revolting blisters. Grace kept herself more covered than I did, so at first, she was mostly spared, though she still got the rash on her hands, and we discovered it could spread. At times I felt like I had it everywhere.