Lieutenant John Holbrook, Sergeant John Wheeler

by Laszlo Endrody

  Before the shooting, Miller had put little Maggy in the back of the buckboard on a deer skin throw. Little Maggy heard the commotion, but she stayed in the back of the buckboard the entire time. On their way home, she sat up front between Miller and her mother, and Miller handed her a piece of candy. She was sure happy about that.

  When they got home, they carried in deer and Linda and some other girls started to cut it up. Then they took all of the saddlebags up to their room. They went through all of the money belts and ended up with a lot of gold. Maggy told Miller that he could have the money from the money belt she got since she would have to get a brand for her horse, but he refused. He told her that she had earned every bit of that money fair and square. She had a total of 800 dollars and Miller also had about the same. Maggy asked Miller what she should do with her money, and he told her she should buy a small buckboard and a mare to go with her gelding so she would have transportation. He told her, “When little Maggy starts school next year, you will have to take her to and from school.” Maggy started to cry and told Miller she had never killed anyone before. She started thinking about the men’s families and was feeling guilty. Miller told her not to feel sorry for those men because they were killers.

  He told her, “If we wouldn’t have shot them, they would have killed not only the two of us, but also little Maggy. Those men are ruthless.”

  “Can I give some money to Father Martin?” she asked.

  “Yes dear. But don’t give him too much, and don’t tell anyone that we met those bandits.”

  “Where can I keep my money?” she asked.

  “Put it one of your drawers, and put away the empty money belt. I will do the same. I have a box in my drawer where I put all of my money. I don’t trust the bank in town, because at the tax sales the banker was trying to bid on everything and was bidding with depositor’s money. He put all of the homes he bid on in his name, not the banks. We are not going to use that bank, they are crooked,” he told her.

  “When should I buy the buckboard?”

  “After we are married, that way they won’t figure it is your money. They don’t need to know everything; it’s not any of their business. We will find you a nice mare to go with your gelding so that you will have good transportation. We will put things in your name, that way nobody can touch it unless you tell them otherwise,” he explained.

  Maggy and John got married that next Sunday. John harnessed up two big Amish horses to the new wagon and drove to the church. All of the boys and girls from the town-house and the helpers at the farm were at the church. Father Martin never had that many people in his church before. I was a witness and the Quaker corporal was the other. Both of the Quaker boys had been kicked out of their church, so they made sure to have two Amish horses pulling the new wagon in front for all of the Amish to see. They also wanted to get a rise out of their old bishop as well. I just laughed. Both Quaker boys were sitting with the homeless girls and talking with them. The girls really liked them; they had steady jobs and nice clothes.

  After the services, Father Martin married them. Afterwards, John and I invited everyone to the restaurant for a big dinner. We gave the people at the restaurant a heads up that we were coming, so when we got there they had all of the tables pushed together. It took the whole place to feed everybody. The boys sat at a table and the rest of us sat at one of the four tables pushed together. Two of our girls helped serve everyone and the owner told them that they could work for him if they wanted. They gladly accepted, and told him they’d be there Monday morning. Those girls needed jobs. Little Maggy was sitting with us and so was the priest. She had her new clothes on and was excited about her mother getting married. Father Martin was excited for little Maggy too. Maggy gave him 100 dollars for the orphans.

  Maggy went to the store and asked if she could buy a mare to go with her Morgan gelding. The owner told her that he would get her one. He stated that it might be a thoroughbred cross and asked her if that would be okay. She told him it was fine. He told her to come back in two days and she could look the mare over and take her home if she found it acceptable. Miller told her that they would also pick up a new wagon. He wanted to see if they would negotiate with him since they were building two new buckboards for Maggy and Betty. They would use the other buckboard for fence building. Six miles of fence was going to be a big job, and expensive to boot.

  We asked the priest if any young men were coming home from the war, and he told us that not too many went to war from there. We needed some young men to work for us. The priest told us that he would write to Philadelphia and Gettysburg to see if any young men needed jobs.

  When they went to pick up the new wagon, Maggy asked the agent how much the buckboard cost. The boss told her it was 96 dollars. She told him that she needed two. He told her it would be 180 dollars. She ordered two and also packed up the mare. The grocer told her that she would foal in six months; it cost her 75 dollars. She asked Miller to design a brand for her. Once it was finished, they went to the smith to have it made up. Then they would brand her two horses on the left shoulder. A year from now she would have one more to brand.

  Taking care of little Maggy took a lot of time. Of course, Maggy had help from the other girls. Elsy helped her a lot and Maggy paid her well. Elsy was getting ready to have a baby.

  Maggy went into to town a week later to pick up the other buckboard. She still needed a harness. Miller fixed her up with a harness; they had a lot of old harnesses hanging in the barns that could be overhauled. He told her that they would take all of the old harnesses into the shop for overhauling. The set she got was in good shape, so she could travel in to town and visit the children with little Maggy.

  She went and bought little Maggy’s friend a new dress; both little girls were really happy. She got a couple of sacks of new potatoes and took them home with her and Miller carried them in. Maggy and John got along really nicely and were very happy together. Her mare and gelding were both halter broke and they liked pulling a buckboard.

  Chapter Five

  The priest came out with three young men, ex-soldiers back from fighting, who were looking for a job. They had one horse each. They came in from Gettysburg and needed work. I asked them if they had ever worked on a farm before. Only one of them had, but the other two could learn. I asked the one who had previous farm experience if could cut hay. He said that he could, as well as wheat and oats too. He said that he had done it all. The other two just wanted to learn and work. Two of them had been sergeants and the other was a lieutenant. They all rode home together. All they had to their name was a horse, saddle, and a blanket roll. I put them in the bunkhouse and told them dinner was in half an hour. I told Father Martin that Maggy would drive him home.

  After dinner, I told Maggy to stay and I would drive Father Martin home. I asked her if I could use her buckboard and she agreed.

  I then addressed our three new workers and said, “In the morning we start on the fence. We will pick up four girls and four men in town, and then start with the poles. We have four posthole diggers, so the men can dig and the girls set the posts in and tamp the dirt around them. A couple of men better take some guns, just in case you run into some wolves or anything else that needs shooting.”

  I told Miller to pick up the girls in the morning and drive them out to the job. I said, “We will start in the east corner. The girls will have to have jeans and good shoes and a warm jacket; the men will also need warm clothes. Once we are working, everybody will know what they will need. We have six miles of fence to build, and we will learn as we go. The workers should have some hot coffee at all times; we may have to take a girl just to tend the fire and make coffee. Lunch will be brought out with the wagon.”

  “They make steel fence posts now, and if we used two steel posts between two wooden posts, we would cut our time in half. You don’t dig with steel posts, you drive them in,” Sergeant Wells told us.

  I asked Sergeant Wells where we could buy the s
teel posts. He said, “If they don’t have them in town then we could order them. We will need 1,000 posts to start with.”

  “How much wire will we need?” Miller asked.

  “We should only get fifty rolls at a time. You will have five wires going from post to post. We will need wire to fasten to the steel posts and four nails to fasten to the wood posts,” Wells explained.

  I told the men to take whatever they needed down from the buckboard so I could go to town and order everything. I told them I would bring back everything that they needed. Sergeant Wells came along with me since he had built fences before.

  We stopped at the Amish grocer and asked him if he had any steel fence posts. He brought out a pack of ten. The sergeant told me that we needed a driver to drive the posts into the ground.

  “The posts are half a dollar each,” the grocer said. “So, ten of them will be five dollars.”

  “Do you have a driver for the posts?” I asked.

  “I think we may have something, I will bring it out.” He brought out a driver and told us it was one dollar.

  “That’s what we need,” the sergeant assured me. “Let’s buy it so I can show you how it works.”

  I bought one more posthole digger and after that, we headed back to the job. The grocer told me that the wire would come tomorrow and they would deliver it. It would be almost a full load on the wagon.

  When we got out to the jobsite, Sergeant Wells demonstrated how the post-driver worked. He pounded all ten posts in and it took him half an hour. One of the girls helped him; she brought him the posts and he pounded them in. After he had ten holes dug, he would put the poles in and continue on in this manner. As he went along, he made sure to keep the poles in as straight a line with the original post we had placed. He would walk out ten feet, dig a hole, and then the girl would put a post by the hole. Then he’d walk another ten feet, and do the same thin. The two worked together all day and got way more done than the others. After ten posts, we went back to get the shovel and filled in around the posts.

  I asked the girl working with Wells what her name was.

  “Milly,” she replied.

  “You two are doing a great job,” I assured her. “Stay with the sergeant.”

  “I will, he is teaching me a lot,” she stated.

  When she got back to him he asked her, “What did the boss have to say?”

  “He told me to stay with you, and that we are doing a good job,” she told him.

  I figured that I would put the sergeant in charge of the fencing and take the Quaker sergeant with me to get a disc so that he could get started discing with a big team. I would buy one disc now and then order a second one.

  Miller, my partner, was sort of in charge of the horses and I told him that we are going to disc with a big team and we would have to rotate the horses.

  “I will go and get the disc,” I told him. “I am going to let my wife pay for it; it’s going to be her disc.”

  I ordered one more disc. I did not know if it would work in the brush, but we had to try. We would just have to go around the really heavy brush that the disc did not cut down. We could also bring in a wagon of straw to put on the brush to burn it up and then disc it. The ground was frozen now, so the disc did not go in deep, it just cut the brush and laid it down. We would disc it again next spring when the ground was thawed so the disc would go in deeper. After that, it could be harrowed and seeded. If we could establish good grass, we could put horses out hobbled, and they would stay on the grass. We would also need to have a well drilled for water. We would eventually need three wells drilled on the two sections.

  I got Milly a room in the big house and told her from now on she would be working full-time every day, weather permitting. Sergeant Wells had a small room too. The upstairs had a lot of rooms. The kitchen help fed everybody that came to eat. Nobody went hungry. Maggy had to go and pick up Betty’s buckboard that next morning. She asked Betty for her buckboard team and Betty told her that she had a team but needed two.

  “I bought two new buckboards, one for myself and one for you,” Maggy told Betty, “because the men use your other one for the fencing job.”

  “You bought me a new buckboard?” Betty questioned.

  “I did, but I haven’t bought the horses yet. I have to take your horses with me and have someone else bring the new buckboard home,” Maggy stated.

  I told Maggy that I would go with her; then Betty said that she wanted to come too. We all got to ride in Maggy’s new buckboard. We went to the wagon maker and he told me that my big wagon would be finished in one week. I would have all four big wagons ready for the harvest and haying. After we left the wagon maker’s, little Maggy wanted some apple pie. We headed downtown and stopped at the restaurant and asked for some apple pie and coffee for the adults, and some milk for little Maggy. She just loved to stop there. She ate her pie all gone and at half of mine too. Maggy paid for everyone. I asked Maggy where the money had come from to buy the two wagons.

  “Did John tell you?” she asked.

  “No, he didn’t tell me anything.”

  “We were attacked by three bandits. John shot two and I shot one. John told me to keep the money from the man I shot, and he had some plans to spend his. He wants to find a Morgan stud and a Hereford bull to go in the pasture.”

  “I will help him all that I can. I’ll tell you what Maggy, I would love to have a Morgan stud and a Hereford bull. I will help Miller all that I can with getting them,” I assured her.

  After our short meeting over coffee, Betty thanked Maggy for the new buckboard and Maggy and little Maggy went home. Betty’s other buckboard went to the fence builders. Little Maggy loved her new home and she would go from one end of the house to the other making friends with all the other girls.

  Sergeant Wells worked the fence gang with Milly. If he wanted the girls to do something, he would tell Milly and Milly would relay it to the girls. The girls accepted Milly as their boss. I noticed that Milly would give the orders and the work got done. I sent for the sergeant and he sent Milly to see what I wanted.

  I told her, “Tell him I decided to stick around just in case I have to shoot a wolf.” We had the wagon with 200 fence posts and two drivers.

  Milly said to the wagon driver, “Let’s not unload it here. Let’s go to the fence line and we will lay them out where they will go so we can drive them in as soon as we can. Is the wire in yet?”

  “No,” replied the driver. “But it is coming.”

  “We need it,” Milly replied.

  He drove up to the fence line and she laid the fence posts out; it went fast. The sergeant grabbed a driver and started to drive the posts in and worked quickly.

  At dinner time, I asked the sergeant, “How many posts were you able to get in toady?”

  He told me, “I’m not sure. You’d better ask Milly.”

  “How many, Milly?” I asked her.

  “Eighty-three,” she stated proudly.

  “That’s fantastic! That’s really working fast,” I replied.

  I told Betty to put the sergeant and Milly down as foremen and told her that they were in charge of the fence building. I then told the sergeant and Milly, “We only have six miles to go.” Everybody laughed.

  While we were still eating dinner, I told everyone, “In the morning we will have three wagons to go get firewood and posts. I want rifles with the three foremen in charge. Sergeant Wells will pick up a sack of buns at the baker’s, and Milly will pick up whatever the kitchen sends out and will share it with all three wagons. Each foreman is in charge of a wagon. Try to get a deer on the way back. Milly’s firewood goes to the town house and so does her deer. The other two will bring their deer back here. If you can, cut some fence posts and bring them as well. The weather is good, so I hope it will be fine tomorrow. Everybody goes. Girls must have good shoes. If you spread out, have your guns ready. If you see any wolves or cougars, shoot them as soon as they’re
in range. Shoot a bear only if it attacks. Take saws, axes, and a shovel on each wagon. Work carefully; I don’t want anyone getting hurt. No heavy lifting, girls; save that for the men, the big wagons, and the heavy horses. Let the horses graze if good grass is around and take a sack of oats in each wagon, as well as some hobbles for the horses in the morning. Anyone have any questions?”

  The sergeant raised his hand and said, “Some of the men have told me that they don’t want to work for a woman.”

  “That’s just too bad now isn’t it? How about you, sergeant? How do you feel working for a woman?” I asked him.

  “I love working with Milly. She makes a lot of sense,” he answered.

  “Well, stay close to Milly’s wagon. The men have a choice, they can either work for a woman or they can find work elsewhere. Help Milly all you can. You two make a good team.”

  The sergeant got a sack full of buns and went to the town house where Milly was getting all of the girls that were going to help on the wagon, and they headed out following the sergeant. The other wagon was already out there and they were making coffee. Everyone got a cup of hot coffee and it made things a lot nicer for them.

  The sergeant and Milly went into the cedars. There saw some cedars that would make excellent fence posts, so the sergeant marked them with his axe. He had two men cut the trees down with a saw. Milly got some girls to chop the branches off and cut them up for firewood. Then the girls carried the wood out to the two wagons. The men on the other wagon started to cut down some trees too. They cut them up and loaded the wood. Everything went smoothly.

  All of a sudden, they heard a big roar and Milly reached for her Spencer, figuring it was a bear. She ran back to the where the men working and shot above their heads. Immediately after, a cougar fell out of a tree and landed onto the ground right behind the men. It was dead. She knew that Linda was a good skinner, and told her to skin the cougar. Linda got her knife and sharpening stone and skinned the cougar out and then they cut it up and put the meat on top of the skin. Then they went back to work on the firewood.