The Lost Wagon Part 19

"Hi, Emma. I swear you get prettier every day. How you ever fell for an old he-c.o.o.n like Joe is something I'll never understand." He shifted the fiddle to his other shoulder. Pete stood in the doorway, and seemed to be waiting.

"Play something, Yancey," Emma pleaded. "Play some music for us."

"Sure. What do you want to hear?"

"Anything."

Yancey Garrow took his fiddle out of its case, tucked it under his chin, and drew the bow across it a couple of times. He began a lively rendition of "Yankee Doodle." Her face flushed with pleasure, Barbara emerged from her room.

"Long while since I've danced with a girl as pretty as you are!" Pete Domley declared. "Come on, Bobby."

He whirled her around the room while Yancey increased the tempo of his music. Grinning, Joe took Emma in his arms. A shadow darkened the door and Fellers Compton was there.

"Stretch my ears and call me a jacka.s.s!" he breathed. "You people get the best ideas of anybody in Missouri!"

He had a wrapped parcel in his hands and he put it down on the table.

"Caroline put up too much strawberry preserves and she hopes to unload some of it on you, now that you're going away. Keep playing, Yancey.

I'll be back."

While Joe danced with Barbara and Pete Domley with Emma, Yancey played "Oh, Susannah," and then another of Foster's songs. Putting his fiddle aside for a second, Yancey dipped himself a drink of water. Barbara's and Emma's eyes were glistening, for the air was tense and expectant.

This was the way most parties started. Yancey put the gourd dipper beside the bucket of water just as old Tom Abend drove up with his wife, his three youngest children, his two married daughters, their husbands, and their children.

"Fellers said we might come over here to see what's goin' on," he greeted.

"Right good idea," Joe said.

Tom continued, "One of my boys shot a buck last week, and we made jerky.

Lot more'n we can use so I brought some for you to take along."

"Thanks, Tom."

Joe saw Tom's amiable wife and daughters chatting with Emma. In addition to jerky, meant to go along with the departing wagon, they had brought four pies, several pounds of b.u.t.ter, some fresh venison, and two lanterns. Yancey swung into the plaintive melody of "Ben Bolt" and Joe found himself dancing with one of Tom Abend's daughters while her husband danced with Emma.

The neighbors came on horse- and muleback, in wagons and carts, and on foot, with those who lived nearest arriving first. All bore gifts, and all explained that they simply had too much at home. The Towers would really be doing them a favor to take some of it off their hands. In addition, all brought whatever had been ready for a hoedown in the making. They overflowed the house and spilled out into the yard, but somebody had stretched a rope between the house and the barn and hung lighted lanterns on it. Tonight there would be no thought of saving lantern oil. Tonight was for fun.

Yancey played until he was tired, and then Les Tenney spelled him. While not as expert a fiddler as Yancey, Les knew a great many tunes, variations on those tunes, and when he could think of nothing else he improvised his own music. Joe saw Barbara dancing with Marcia Geragty, but only for a second. Grinning, two of Tom Abend's big sons separated the girls and danced them away. Dancing with eight-year-old Celia Trevelyan, Tad was having a wonderful time and even the babies danced with each other.

Inside the house, the table groaned under its weight of food and a huge pot of coffee, and those who were hungry could help themselves to as much as they wanted any time they wanted it. But n.o.body lingered inside for very long. Old Tom Abend tapped Joe on the shoulder.

"My sons-in-law got a c.o.o.n treed behind the barn. They want you to come help shake it out."

"Sounds like fun."

"It will be."

Joe followed old Tom out of the light cast by the hanging lanterns and into the dark shadows cast by the barn. Tom's two husky sons-in-law stood beside the barrel of whisky that they had set up on blocks of wood and tapped. The crowd around the barrel increased as more men slipped away from the dance, and cups rattled as they were filled and pa.s.sed around. Old Tom said clearly.

"We'll drink to the Tower family and Oregon!"

"All right!" they chorused. "To all the Towers and Oregon!"

Joe stepped back into the shadows, raised the cup to his lips, and managed, unseen, to spill it onto the gra.s.s. But he felt as though he had drunk all of it. His feet were light and airy, and his head seemed clearer than it had ever been before. He laughed unrestrainedly, and rejoined the party just in time to choose Emma as his partner for a square dance which Lance Trevelyan was calling;

"Alamen left and you git around, Hand over hand like a merry-go-round."

As the dance gathered tempo, all the younger children were put to sleep in either the beds or in whichever wagon was not already crowded with sleeping youngsters. Joe danced on, and at intervals cups again rattled behind the barn while the barrel became lighter.

Because it seemed to him that the dance had just started, Joe was amazed when the sun rose.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Independence

The last hour the Towers spent at their old home was a time of bustling confusion and great activity. Joe shook hands with all the men, and stood awkwardly while all the women kissed his cheek and wished him well. The women gathered about Emma, and tears flowed as they embraced.

Joe gulped, more than ever realizing the enormity of the task they had undertaken and what it involved. The people gathered about were the friends of a lifetime, and living together had cemented more than superficial friendship. There was love too, and respect, and Joe had a sudden wild desire to ask everybody to go with him. He tried not to look at the weeping Emma, and knew a lighter moment when he saw Tad, knife at his belt, swaggering before the younger set. Then he saw Helen Domley with Carlyle in her arms and turned away so no man would see the tears in his own eyes.

Under no circ.u.mstances could Joe have described exactly how they started for Oregon; he saw the over-all picture but not the details. He did know that the mattresses, the last articles to go into the wagon, were carried there and placed exactly right by an army of willing workers.

The same army literally overwhelmed and hitched the mules, and tied the placid cow to the wagon's rear. Joe's four younger children, still sleepy, promptly went to sleep on the mattresses. Tad, who had already a.s.serted his determination to walk all the way to Oregon, refused to ride and Mike stayed at his heels. Barbara walked hand in hand with Marcia Geragty, and Emma was in John Geragty's wagon. n.o.body else was going to Oregon, but the Towers would have plenty of company for at least the first part of their journey. Not everybody could see them off, for some had to return to their work. But most went.

The mules, overawed at being caught and harnessed by so many expert muleteers, were completely tractable. They strained willingly into their harness when Joe gave the order. Ahead, behind, and one both sides, rode or walked the people they were leaving. One by one they had to turn back and start in the other direction, and the last to turn was Marcia Geragty. Though Joe could not be positive about many other details of their leave-taking, he was never to forget the parting of his daughter and her best friend.

They were walking ahead of the wagon, still hand in hand but not shoulder to shoulder. They were not looking at each other. Suddenly, and Joe thought that no word pa.s.sed between them, they stepped off the road and embraced. Joe stopped the wagon so Barbara could climb in, and because he did not want her to know that he saw tears in her eyes, he stared straight ahead. Emma came from John Geragty's cart to climb up on the wagon seat beside Joe and the last thing the Towers heard from any of their Missouri friends were the Geragtys shouting,

"Good luck, and G.o.d bless you!"

Except for the stubborn Tad, who obviously intended to make good his boast that he would walk all the way to Oregon, Joe's family was in the wagon. The accustomed routine of the youngest children had been interrupted sufficiently to keep them sleepy and subdued. The others spoke little, for Joe, Emma, and Barbara, had stayed up until the dance ended. In addition, for the first time each in his own way was beginning fully to realize that they were definitely on the way. They thought of all they had left behind, and wondered about what was to come. There seemed so much to wonder about. Yet everything they might expect to find had only a vague shape in their minds. Emma reflected, as she moved with the jogging motion of the wagon, that to wonder vaguely about a vague future is in itself a tiring thing, more tiring even than a hoedown.

At the first night's camp there was much to do, and all of them too weary to do it. But Joe did cut wood for a fire, and chain the mules so they couldn't break away and go home, and tether the cow in a place where she could find good grazing, and feed Emma's poultry. He was glad that he had to do no more. Emma spread out some of the remainders of last night's feast, but no one had much interest in eating. At the same time no one regretted any part of last night. A rousing hoedown was the right way to take leave of your friends.

The little ones nodded over their food and then, with the familiar faces of Emma and Barbara hovering over them and the familiar arms of Emma and Barbara holding and hugging them, they snuggled down into their places in the wagon as if nothing here were in any way new or different. Joe made a pallet for Emma and one for Barbara, and then he and Tad rolled up in their blankets and lay down a few feet away.

Tad fell asleep in an instant, and slept so deeply that he snored a little, something he did only when he was completely exhausted. The occasional snort, emerging at intervals from the bundle of blanket that was Tad, brought a smile to Joe's face as he lay beside him. That young one was going to live this trip to the hilt, every minute of it. For a moment Joe felt good that Tad was to have this tremendous adventure while he was still so young. But the good feeling gave way almost at once to a medley of thoughts that shouldered each other out of the way for his attention--thoughts of possible accidents, and plans to be made--plans that would be revised from day to day according to the hazards and needs of the moment. As the land beneath them changed, they would all need to change, to make the best of whatever might come, to adapt themselves to each day's demands on them. The older ones would have to fend for the younger ones. He thought of Emma and Barbara and Tad, and his heart warmed at the thought of their courage and their loyalty. And then his heart froze at the thought of the dangers that might overtake them. And so, with this turmoil of feelings in his breast, Joe Tower slowly, reluctantly, unwilling to leave his problems unsolved, dropped off into an uneasy sleep.

Barbara looked up at the stars and at the soft depth of the night sky.

She thought there was something eerie and yet wonderful about sleeping in the open with her whole family around her. Tonight we are G.o.d's children, she thought. We are closer to G.o.d here, with no roof between us and Him. How fragrant was the night air! How mysterious and beautiful was the soft rustling of gra.s.s and brush, stirring in the gentle summer breeze! The scratching of a field mouse, the chirp of a cricket--everything was full of life and promise for the future. She stretched luxuriously, thinking of great mountains and wide, wild rivers, and of vast western plains where they would meet strapping farmers and ranchers, some of them, perhaps, with tall handsome sons, sons with strong arms and laughing eyes. She grinned at herself then, and curled into a ball and dropped off to sleep, wondering whether the gra.s.s would be as fragrant in Oregon.

Emma lay staring into blackness. Without a familiar tree or rooftop silhouetted against it, the sky was a vast and awesome thing. It was limitless, remote and indifferent. Her family was a few scattered sc.r.a.ps of humanity, fallen down here to rest on the unfriendly ground under the distant, disinterested sky. She twitched when a cricket chirped and, shivering, drew the blanket closer around her. She wanted to go to Joe, and to lie close to him, but she dared not show him that she was afraid.

From this point on, for the children's sake, she must be the woman they thought her to be--endlessly resourceful and forever serene. Her eyes ached with staring, and she hungered for the familiar walls of their little room, or failing that, at least a familiar fence, a familiar tree, a familiar anything. Then she thought of the babies, of their dear familiar faces now placid in slumber. She thought of Barbara's familiar grace as she walked beside the wagon, of Tad's familiar bounding and leaping as he led his dog a merry chase. And she thought of Joe, of his familiar voice as he talked to the children, of the strength of his arms as he helped her down from the wagon, and of his willing, unstinting devotion to all of them. She knew then that all the dearest and most familiar parts of her life were right here, all around her.

Tears welled into her eyes, and she let them run down over her cheeks, and she prayed that she would be strong enough and brave enough, and that they would reach Oregon alive and well and that, on the new land, they would all be happy and at peace.

By the next morning the pa.s.sing of time had already started to heal their wounds. With baby Emma and little Joe beside her, Emma chose to walk for a while. Alfred and Carlyle, swelling with pride at being elevated to a place of such importance, rode on the seat beside Joe.

Barbara danced down the trail, filling her arms with summer-blooming flowers. With Mike always at his heels, Tad left the road for the more exciting country on either side. He would disappear for an hour or more, but he always reappeared, sometimes waiting ahead of the wagon and sometimes running to catch up with it.