THE HUFFING RULE
De Smet, South Dakota laid itself out in a checkerboard pattern just like any other railroad town on the Chicago, Northwestern line. Each street running north to south was numbered. Each street running east to west was named after a tree, flower, or defeated Indian. From the lumber yard at one end to the new courthouse at the other, the coordinates stayed mathematically perfect. Everyone and everything had his, her, or its place on the checkerboard of De Smet life.
On a chilly October evening in 1891, the private Saturday night checkers game in Ed "Cap" Garland's room (above the livery stables coordinated at Third and Red Cloud) was not playing to Cap's advantage. "Pay attention, will you?" Almanzo Wilder almost yelled, "That's my piece you just moved!" He glared and resumed trying to light his cigar. A horse stomped in the stalls below. From the saloon down the street came a drunken group rendition of "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight".
Cap startled. "Sorry, Manzo." Cap laid a red circle back on the board and slouched into his chair. Absent-mindedly, he flicked a white piece across the board with the slightest effort of an index finger. "You don't have to play, you know."
Wilder studied the board with an eagle eye. "Anything to get away from the wife," he began before slamming down a red piece. "King me," he gloated. "You've got three of my men, so choose one."
Cap obeyed. He then pondered the board. Moving one piece deliberately forward he blurted, "Mind if I ask you something?"
"About time," Wilder exhaled. "You've been in a brown study all night. And your playing's good for nothin'." An aura of cigar smoke already obscured light from the kerosene lantern, which swung from a hook above the table.
"Sorry about the game," Cap began in a careless tone, watching Wilder slam down another red piece. He took a deep breath, then said, "What I want to know is: Any objections to me courting your sister-in-law?"
Wilder choked on an inhale of the cigar. "Wha—What?"
"Mary."
"Ingalls?" Wilder stared at Cap, the cigar momentarily forgotten at the corner of his mouth. "Why the hell would you want to court a blind girl?"
Cap's jaw set. He returned the gaze without blinking. "Because I think I like her." He glanced down at the board. "It's your move, Manzo." A smile twitched in Cap's mustache. "Pay attention, will you?"
" 'Like her' hell," Wilder muttered as he studied the board. He puffed at the cigar rapidly now, and moved a red piece forward as an afterthought. "You've never more than said 'good morning' to her. Looking at her in church on Sundays doesn't count."
Cap leaned forward in the chair. He deliberately picked up a piece, his hand hovering (illegally) above the board. "It seems to me," he looked Wilder straight in the eye, "That you were doing plenty of looking yourself before you married her sister." He clicked the piece down one diagonal forward.
Wilder half avoided both Cap's look and the comment. "Mary's blind, is all. Whose move is it anyway?"
Cap leaned back slightly. "It's yours."
"Oh. Don't be cruel by courting her, Cap. What good would she be as a wife?"
"Almanzo Wilder, if you think for one second that I'm going to move that corner piece so your king can do what he wants, you are sorely mistaken. She takes care of things fine. Though I must admit, her mother never seems to leave her side. You call that a move?"
Wilder watched Cap jump a piece and pondered. " 'Considering' being the key word. Don't even bother, Cap." Wilder clamped down with his teeth on the cigar, jumped three of Cap's men in diagonal succession, and slammed a red piece down, again, on king row. "I win. Her mother will never give permission. She treats Mary like a porcelain doll."
Cap studied the squares on the board, probing their secret. "We'll see about that," he whispered as if he hadn't lost the game. "We'll just see about that."
Cap's opening move in the game of courtship was to try to make small talk with Mary's mother the next day. He waited until they were almost the last people in the church yard.
"Good morning, Mrs. Ingalls. Fine sermon, wasn't it?" They stood on the church steps, Cap unintentionally blocking Mrs. Ingalls's and Mary's way. Mrs. Ingalls, thin, dressed in severe black, did not look inclined to be pleasant.
She wasn't. "All of the Reverend Brown's sermons are good, Mr. Garland. If you will excuse us." She took a firmer grip on her daughter's arm. Mary, silent, dutifully took a step forward. Cap overstepped his next play.
"Please!" He almost reached out a clumsy arm to stop them, which startled both him and Mrs. Ingalls. "Please," Cap began again in a subdued tone, "with your permission, Mrs. Ingalls, I'd very much like to visit with Mary this afternoon."
"You would?" An unsure smile reinforced Mary's question.
Cap forgot to concentrate on the hint of that shy, girlish smile. Instead, he saw an old maid's face full of smallpox scars. Dark blond hair, parted straight down the middle of her scalp, was pulled tight into a bun at the back of her head. Yet in one aspect she was like a porcelain doll: her pale blue eyes were lifeless.
"Well, I," he stammered. The smile faded from Mary's mouth. A mask, more sorrowful than any doll's face, descended in its stead.
Mrs. Ingalls saw all of Cap's thought in a flash. "Visit? I think not, Mr. Garland," and her next words hit deadly. "There's bound to be disappointment. Mary is blind, after all. Manzo," she addressed a space somewhere behind Cap, "Kindly tell Laura we hope to see her soon." Cap heard a mutter of assent. Mrs. Ingalls started forward off the stairs.
Cap stepped back to let them pass. He observed that the tops of his shoes needed polishing. From the corner of his eye he saw the ruffled hem of Mary's skirt trail past him like a blue moth dragging dust on its wings.
He was sorry.
"Cap Garland, don't you dare be a coward!"
Cap turned. Wilder stood behind him, fists clenched, face without expression. He looked like a checkers game was going badly and he wanted to swipe everything off the board. Cap gulped. "I didn't realize that she--" he started to explain. He hoped Mrs. Ingalls and Mary were out of earshot.
"I warned you, Cap," Wilder shifted from one foot to the other. His voice wavered in anger and pity. "I warned you not to play this game. I know: I played things safe, like you usually do. In this case I wed Mary's sister. And if I had to do it over again," his voice ceased. Yet the silence completed the thought as Wilder's countenance turned back into stone.
Cap paled. "W-Would you make the same choice?"
Wilder backed up one step, then two. "Oh, I don't know," he sighed with affected nonchalance. He turned on his heel and walked toward his saddle horse. "It's your move, now." Cap watched him ride away. Wilder looked, and Cap felt, like they had both forfeited the game.
"You would?" Mary's voice haunted Cap that night. The "huffing rule" in checkers pried unceasingly on his mind: Cap had missed his chance to win the turn. His enemy could ignore the oversight, force the jump, or swipe Cap's just-played piece off the board. "Which to choose," Cap thought, "When you're your own opponent?"
He found himself pounding on Mrs. Ingalls's door at a frosty four o'clock on Monday morning. Dogs barked at him in the street. He saw kerosene lamps lit in curiosity from the houses on either side. He didn't care. Let people talk.
Mrs. Ingalls opened the door in a nightgown and shawl, a lamp in her hand, iron-gray hair in a braid down her back. "What do you think you're doing--" It was not a question.
"I think, Mrs. Ingalls," Cap's voice bit off each word evenly, " I am here to ask Mary if I may come visiting. If she will do me the honor." Mrs. Ingalls unwittingly took a step back.
Behind her, Mary materialized out of the darkness. "Why would you?" Her breath frosted into the air. The question was direct. So Cap looked Mary in the eyes and made his next move without pretense.
"Because I think I like you," he replied.