The Lost Wagon Part 24

Emma felt a leaping excitement which immediately conflicted with a strong sense of duty. She wanted desperately to go even while she thought of numberless reasons why she should not.

"Go ahead," Joe laughed. "It's all planned."

"Well, if you're certain--"

"I'm certain, and I'll take care of the kids. Now hurry up and get started."

Emma put her arms around Joe's neck in a quick, tight hug. Barbara, astonished at the unusual show of emotion, giggled, and then followed suit.

Emma and Barbara dressed in the wagon, and for the first time Emma regretted desperately the fact that she had not brought one of her prettier dresses. But she did the best she could, and her heart leaped when Joe looked admiringly at her. Emma glanced at her daughter, radiant in a simple brown dress, and pride swelled within her.

"Have a good time," Joe called as they departed.

Emma was completely in the grip of excitement. Firmly she clutched her purse, in which five dollars reposed. She would not put it beyond city people to s.n.a.t.c.h a woman's purse if they could. Then she began to worry about her appearance. She felt awkward and out of place, and when a young man stared hard at her she blushed, for she decided that she was betraying her rustic upbringing. Then she knew that the young man was merely exercising the right of all young men when lovely girls are present, and that he was staring at Barbara.

They stopped before a store in whose windows a variety of groceries were arranged, and after a moment they entered. Emma began to feel more at ease. The man who came forward reminded her of Les Tenney.

"Is there something I may do for you?" he asked.

Emma murmured, "We thought we might just walk about and--and not decide for a while." She looked him firmly in the eye and he bowed, and moved away. Rea.s.sured by the success of her first encounter, she held her head high.

They pa.s.sed a gla.s.s counter that was divided into compartments, and each compartment was filled to the top with candy. Then they went down the other aisle and out on the street again. Emma gave herself wholly to the spirit of the thing. There were stores in which nothing except drugs were sold, others that dispensed only clothing and shoes. They examined a hardware store and when Emma looked at the gleaming new tools she thought wistfully of Joe, and how he would love them. She envisioned Barbara in a dazzling gown that sold for the staggering price of thirteen dollars. Carefully they examined the latest in kitchen ware and utensils.

Then their day was done. They had spent an afternoon in Paradise and their souls had been lifted. Their eyes had been filled with visions of beautiful, incredible things. They had had a glimpse of another way of life, and it was exciting, but it was not their own. Emma knew that they would have to stock up on provisions before they left Independence. But as they trudged wearily wagonward, they went again into the first store they had entered and Emma made her only purchase of that day.

"Give me," she said, pointing at a mound of h.o.r.ehound candies, "five cents' worth of those."

Finally Joe's work was done. With the six mules in harness and Jake Favors riding beside him, he took a heavy wagon through Independence.

Joe turned the wagon where Jake wanted it turned, halted the mules when that was desired, backed them, made them trot and canter. Back at the corral, without a word of protest, Jake Favors paid him in gold and looked him squarely in the eye.

"Want to stay and work for me?"

"Can't. I have to get to Oregon."

"It's late in the season, and almost 700 miles to Laramie. You'll have to have smooth going all the way to get there ahead of the fall storms.

If the storms don't get you, the Indians might. There won't be anybody else heading out this late in the year. You're all alone, a lost wagon."

"We'll get there and we're not lost."

"I'll make it thirty dollars a mule and promise you work all winter."

"Have to get to Oregon."

"You emigrants for Oregon," lamented Jake Favors, who had grown wealthy selling them horses and mules, "don't have a lick of common sense among the lot of you!"

The Towers broke up camp, and returned to Jake the boards and chairs they had borrowed. Barbara scoured the camp site for toys and sc.r.a.ps of clothing the young ones might have dropped in the gra.s.s.

Emma stood quietly for a moment looking at the charred stones of the fireplace where she had prepared so many meals in the past three weeks.

She reflected that the spot where a woman prepares meals to feed her family has the oddest way of becoming precious. Even though she wanted, just as much as Joe did, to move on now to their final camping site, to the land on which their new home would stand, she had a queer little hankering to stay on here under these trees.

When the wagon began to move away from the apple trees, she looked back, winking angrily to dispose of the tears that came into her eyes. Joe, without turning to look at her, laid his hand, just for a moment, over hers.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The River

Joe and Tad, jackets b.u.t.toned and wool caps pulled down over their ears, were gathering buffalo chips for fuel. For the first part of their journey, wood had been theirs for the taking. But for the past ten days there had been very little, and Joe supposed that this was partly because there never had been very much in the first place and partly because emigrants preceding him had cut down what there was. Joe tried to put this vast prairie in a proper perspective.

The change in terrain had been gradual. No one day, or even the whole trip so far, had revealed any startling differences. The hills in Missouri were low and rolling and so was this country. But the Missouri hills had been forested, and with very few exceptions the only trees they'd found here had been growing along river or creek bottoms. Yet, each day had brought its own changes. But Joe had to think of the whole trip, and get the over-all picture, to place them correctly. When one traveled only twenty or thirty miles, each night's camp seemed much like the one preceding it. But each had differed, and much more startling than any physical change in the country they'd traveled was the sense of going a great distance.

Tenney's Crossing had been warm and friendly, with neighbors always at hand, and not until they reached Independence had they in any sense of the word felt alien. Going out of Independence, they'd pa.s.sed homesteads and settlements and felt at home there. But here there was only the prairie, a vast thing that stretched on all sides. They were all alone, wholly dependent on their own resources, and with no one else to whom they might turn. It was, Joe felt, much like being suspended in s.p.a.ce.

He didn't like the country and he was more than a little afraid of it.

But he hadn't mentioned his fears to Emma.

Buffalo chips in both hands, Tad put them in the sack Joe was carrying.

Joe glanced at him but made no comment. Tad seemed to be looking for something, and sooner or later he would mention whatever he sought.

"How come?" he said finally. "How come, Pa?"

"How come what?"

"All this dry buffalo manure around and no buffalo."

"I don't know that myself," Joe admitted.

"We've come a right smart ways without seein' any, ain't we?"

"We sure have."

"Wouldn't you like to see some?"

"Yup."

"So would I. Do you think we'll get all the way to Oregon without findin' any?"

"I don't know."

"How far are we from Oregon?"

"A long ways. Now if you'll stop asking questions, and start gathering buffalo chips, we might get enough."

"Sure, Pa."