“I have apple trees, orange trees, and plum trees,” said Aidan. “The weather here is always nice. It doesn’t snow.”
“The plums are ripe and so are the apples.” Aidan reached for a plum, dusted it off on his shirt and handed it to Cara.
She bit into the juicy plum with pleasure. Aidan watched her eat, some of the juice dripping down her chin. He handed her his handkerchief. It was spotless white and new, but she still wiped the juice off her chin.
Aidan then took both her hands in his and looked deeply into her eyes. His blue eyes were bottomless. They stood for a while in the orchard peering into each other’s souls. The birds twittered cheerfully in the trees while the two lovers stood hand in hand in the sunshine.
Aidan broke the silence.
“I think I am already falling in love with you Cara,” he said seriously.
Cara’s heart leaped for joy. She knew that this was what she had hoped for, longed for and worked so hard for. “I fell in love with you when I saw your photograph,” she confessed.
Aidan beamed at her.
“That is wonderful news, Cara, wonderful indeed.”
They spent the rest of the morning walking around the farm, talking about their childhoods, about their dreams for the future. In the afternoon, Aidan decided that he must get back to work. He needed to harvest the plums, as they were ripe and would become overripe soon. They were to be sold at the market tomorrow. He said that he would later have to start planting winter wheat.
“I will help ye,” Cara said eagerly.
Aidan beamed again at her. They started with the plums that were easy to reach, placing them in baskets.
That evening Cara made dinner. There was bread, sausages and vegetables. Cara combined the sausages with the vegetables to make a stew.
That night Cara slept in the extra bed in the farmhouse. Before they went to sleep Aidan came to her bedside. He sat down on the bed and leaned towards Cara. He kissed her lips. Cara nearly swooned with pleasure.
He said, “I will only steal a kiss, no more, my dear.”
They stood up and embraced and kissed again before Aidan went back to his bed. Cara fell asleep full of joy and could hardly wait for the new day to begin.
The next day they were at the market where Aidan had a stand selling plums, when Cara asked him, “Aidan, when will you consider marrying me?”
“We cannot get married yet”, he answered, “as half our income will be sent home to Ireland to our families. You can supplement your income with sewing. Besides, I have not planned on getting married yet, only once I am financially more secure.”
Cara felt disappointed.
“I had been counting on us getting married soon. But I guess we shall pool our resources for now and wait until we are financially more stable to get married.”
She made a mental note to herself to advertise her services as a seamstress in the local paper.
Chapter Six
Two months passed by. It was the month of January in the year 1848. Cara and Aidan were in the farmhouse, she was sewing and he working on shoes as he had taken on extra work as a cobbler. A neighbor knocked and Aidan opened the door.
“Why hello, Charlie,” he said.
“I have incredible news,” said Charlie. “They say that gold was found out at Sutter’s Mill. James Marshall, a mill worker, said that he found gold in the tailrace. You know what this means, don’t you? Where there is one bit of gold, there must be more gold. Gold! Gold! Can you believe it!?” He hopped up and down in excitement.
“This is a Godsend. Just what I needed… There is not much work on the farm now, so Cara and I shall go prospecting for gold. You must join us, Charlie,” said Aidan.
“Yes, exactly my thoughts,” Charlie exclaimed.
Cara and Aidan hurriedly got dressed and took some pans with them. Charlie had shown up with his pan and the trio made their way to Sutter’s Mill.
“Let us just look around the area near the mill to see if there is any gold anywhere near the water,” said Charlie.
They scanned the banks of the American River, the river that Sutter’s mill was being built on.
“I see something glinting in the sun,” Cara said, suddenly. She bent over and scratched at the gravel. She picked up a small shiny yellow object.
“God be praised, ‘tis gold!” Aidan exclaimed.
“There must be more nearby.” They set to work, scanning the gravel bed next to the river to see if they could find anything. Soon they had found two more small bits of gold.
They spent the rest of the day looking for gold. By the time it was dusk, they had found ten small pieces of gold.
***
Ten months later found Aidan, Charlie and Cara part of a group of miners that had joined forces to extract gold from the river bed in a more efficient fashion. It was becoming more and more difficult to find gold easily, as there was now a full-fledged gold rush and many people had come to California from Oregon, Mexico, Latin America and from the continental United States via the Oregon Trail to participate in the search for gold. The group of miners used a long rectangular box called a sluice box. The gravel was shoveled into the sluice box and water was poured over it. The sluice box had an uneven surface at the bottom, and gold and pebbles collected there in “riffles”.
The town of Coloma had been turned into a boom town with saloons and many stores.
On a morning in October of 1848, an earnest man approached Cara and Aidan.
“My name is William Wilson. I am a geologist. I would like to ask you some questions.”
Cara and Aidan explained to him where they had first found the gold.
“It took hundreds of millions of years for the gold to find its way to those gravel beds. The gold comes originally from the bowels of the earth and made its way to the surface when ancient volcanoes spewed lava,” William Wilson commented.
“Will there be much gold found from now on, or are the findings exhausted?” asked Aidan.
“Hard to say,” Wilson answered.
“I think it will eventually be more practical for me to supply Samuel Brannan’s shops with produce, rather than panning for gold,” said Aidan. “Samuel Brannan is the shopkeeper who widely publicized the finding of gold at Sutter’s mill, as he wanted to make a profit selling goods to miners,” Aidan explained to Wilson.
That evening, Cara wrote a letter to her parents.
Aidan and I are not married yet, as we are still making our fortune as participants in the gold rush. We have found quite a bit of gold, but it is not yet enough wealth for us to settle down and have a family. Aidan thinks that it will soon be more profitable to go back to working on the farm and sell produce via Samuel Brannan’s stores to miners. It might take us another year to accumulate enough wealth to start a family as well as regularly send money to you and to Aidan’s family in Galway. You must look up Aidan’s family at some point. Send us some pictures, would you? I would love to see how the children have grown.
***
On a balmy spring morning in April the following year, Aidan was panning for gold at a location near the river, when he spotted something shining in the sun. The group of miners was not using the more efficient technique but had decided to pan at a different location downstream. He walked towards the location where he had seen something glinting. One of the other miners noticed that he was walking purposefully towards something. That miner, John Evans, began to run in the same direction. He too then spotted the gold shining in the sun.
“I saw it first,” he snarled.
Aidan appealed to his fellow miners.
“Didn’t you see me first heading in that direction?”
“Yes,” said Charlie. “I will stand up in court if needs be and testify that you saw the gold first.” The other miners restrained John while Aidan strolled to the location where he had seen the gold shining. He bent over and brushed away the rest of the gravel.
“Look!” Aidan shouted. He held aloft a large yellow nugget, th
e size of an egg.
The group cheered and clapped. Aidan ran with his gold egg all the way to the bank, Cara panting alongside him. They placed the nugget in a vault at the bank.
“How much do you think it is worth?” asked Aidan.
“Possibly a year’s wages,” said the bank employee.
Later Cara asked Aidan, “Does this mean that we can get married?”
“Well, I don’t think I have enough yet to establish a family. Besides, I need you to be free to work alongside me for the time being, rather than having to take care of a baby,” said Aidan.
Cara felt depressed, but she loved Aidan too much to say anything.
The next day, she noticed something odd. Aidan felt distant and he continuously looked in the direction of a young woman who had joined the group of gold miners a month ago. Cara suddenly caught the young woman winking at Aidan. She quickly turned her head to see Aidan’s reaction but found him looking her in the eye instead, with a cautious expression on his face.
Cara’s heart sank. What would she do if she lost Aidan? She was so in love with him and needed him in her life. She would have to go back to working as a maid somewhere and would have to start over from scratch. How would she support her family if it took her a while to find a new job? These thoughts ran like a freight train through Cara’s mind and she firmly decided that she would fight for Aidan’s heart with all her might. The new woman must be ousted from his thoughts and from his heart.
Cara decided that she needed to know more about this young woman. The woman had long blonde hair in a pigtail and large cat-like green eyes. She was extremely beautiful. And she knew it. She carried herself like a queen, tossing her blonde pigtail over her shoulder with an arrogant air.
Cara approached her warily and struck up a conversation with her. “My name is Cara. You’re relatively new to our group. What’s your name?”
“I’m Melissa,” the girl answered rather haughtily. “I came here from Oregon. My family came to Oregon via the Oregon Trail a few years ago, and we now are looking for gold after having heard about Sutter’s Mill.”
“Really, so where is the rest of your family?” asked Cara.
“We are looking for gold in a variety of locations,” the girl said. “My parents are in a town to the south of this location.”
“So have you found a lot of gold so far?” asked Cara.
“Nope,” said Melissa. “It is becoming harder and harder to find gold simply by panning, so I joined your group as I heard that you sometimes use a method of obtaining gold, that requires a group of people to collaborate in extracting gold from a large amount of gravel and you then share your finds.”
“True,” Cara mused. “Aidan and I are considering returning to farming,” she said, “As it will soon be less profitable to spend our time looking for gold than working on a farm.”
She tried to gauge the girl’s reaction to this news. She seemed to be flushing and looked embarrassed. Perhaps she knew that Cara was trying to see her reaction. The girl did look like she had been counting on seeing Aidan on a daily basis while he was searching for gold as part of the group. Was she trying to capture his affections? Why would such a good-looking girl be interested in Aidan, especially since it was obvious that Cara was with Aidan? Cara also began to ponder the fact that she had not noticed the girl as competition until today. Melissa had joined the group at least a month ago and she had not really registered in Cara’s mind as a person of any significance until now.
Aidan came up to them.
“My name is Aidan, what’s yours?” He offered the girl his hand to shake. The girl seemed far friendlier in her demeanor towards Aidan than she had been with Cara.
“I’m Melissa,” she said, enthusiastically shaking his hand. Her large green eyes gleamed meaningfully with cat-like concentration.
“I see that you’ve already met Cara,” said Aidan.
“Yes, I’ve learned that Melissa is from Oregon. She came to Oregon just recently, though. Where are you originally from, Melissa?” Cara said with a melancholy undertone.
“My family moved to Oregon from Missouri,” answered Melissa, looking deeply into Aidan’s blue eyes rather than at Cara.
Cara felt slighted. It was as if the conversation was only between Aidan and Melissa. She began to feel like a third fiddle. But she refused to give ground. “We’ve had a lot of luck with the weather so far,” Cara said rather loudly, interrupting the unspoken communion between Aidan and the upstart girl. Was it love at second sight for Aidan with Melissa? Cara wondered painfully, with a broken heart. Men! They can be so fickle… she thought.
“I have to go to the bank to deposit today’s gold finds,” announced Aidan.
Before Cara could answer Melissa quickly said, “Oh, I need to go to the post office to send a letter to my parents. Do let me come with you.” Again, she addressed Aidan rather than Cara.
To Cara’s chagrin, Aidan answered with an amused facial expression and with alacrity, “Of course, Melissa, we’ll escort you into town. Meet us at the bank when you have posted your letter.”
They strode into town, Aidan and Melissa chatting while Cara tried her best to interrupt the flow of conversation between the two. She watched Aidan with an eagle’s eye. He seemed to know that she was watching him and his attitude towards Melissa was now tempered with caution as if he did not want Cara to notice too much.
Cara began to wonder if there was already something between Aidan and Melissa that had been going on behind her back. But how could that be? She and Aidan had not spent a moment apart in the month that Melissa had been part of the group. Cara thought that she surely would have noticed if anything had been amiss. Aidan had been quite loving towards her and they had kissed every night since that first night, without going beyond a kiss, though. Was Cara too prudent with regard to that? But how could she give in when she and Aidan were not married? It went against her Christian principles and besides, how could she be sure that he would wed her if she became pregnant?
Cara pondered, What if Melissa is the kind of girl who doesn’t wait till marriage? Would Aidan choose her rather than me?
As they approached the town, Cara noticed that Melissa’s hand brushed ever so surreptitiously against Aidan’s. Aidan’s face went fiery red. Obviously, he was falling in love with Melissa, Cara assumed, her soul in agony. She began to feel desperately alone in the world. If Aidan left her for Melissa she would be left solo here in the Wild West without male protection…
Melissa looked triumphantly at Cara and said pertly, “Here’s the post office, I will meet up with you later at the bank.”
As they were walking towards the bank, Cara felt a sense of fury. She was so angry that she could not trust herself to speak. They continued on in silence, Aidan seemingly lost in thought. She gazed at his handsome profile as he strode along pensively and her heart constricted with love and sadness, in spite of her anger.
She thought, Perhaps I have chosen a man who is too good-looking. Every woman wants to throw herself at him and I have too much competition. I too am good-looking and many men have looked at me with desire. But what use are my good looks if I cannot keep my chosen one at my side? I must think fast, I must have a plan, to win over Aidan’s heart once and for all. If I was married to him and we had children together, no upstart green-eyed wench could come between us… But we aren’t married and we don’t have children yet. I could lose him before I have a chance to bind him to me with the strong bonds between two people who create new human life from that sacred physical union that is marriage…
Cara and Aidan entered the bank and Aidan poured out some small pieces of gold from a small leather bag into his hand. He gave the bank teller the gold. The teller weighed the gold and placed it in a vault where the nuggets that Aidan and Cara had found up until then were in safe keeping. Aidan jotted down the weight of the gold in a little notebook that he then placed in his shirt pocket.
“You two have been making very good progress an
d at this rate, will soon be very rich,” said the teller.
“We have found quite a lot of gold compared to many others who have been less fortunate,” Aidan remarked. “I have a farm quite close to Sutter’s Mill and we heard about the gold that was found there the very next day. We were able to get at the gold that was easily available in the gravel deposits next to the American River. But it is now getting more and more difficult to collect gold, as the easily panned and mined deposits have been depleted.”
He and Cara went outside the bank and stood in its shade, waiting for Melissa. Normally, Cara and Aidan would have stood there hand in hand. A shadow seemed to have been cast over them. They stood in silence, pensively side by side, until Cara said, “Do we have enough food at home for our dinner? Should we go shopping for some groceries? It is rather late, why return to the miners, maybe we should just shop for groceries and then go straight home.”
Aidan fidgeted.
“I think that we should go back and complete a day’s work, but if you insist, we can shop for groceries instead.”
Cara felt somehow foolish and as if she needed to explain herself.
“Well, as far as I know there is only bread in the house and some plums.”
“Very well,” sighed Aidan, “let’s go shopping then, instead.”
Just then Melissa came around the corner. She jumped a little as if surprised.
“Cara has decided that we need to go grocery shopping instead of going back to where the group is panning for gold.” To Cara’s chagrin, Aidan made it seem like the decision was only hers.
Melissa looked extremely crestfallen. “Oh, well… I guess I shall have to return to the group alone then,” she said, looking pleadingly at Aidan, batting her green eyes with their long lashes in an appealing fashion.
“Cara, why don’t you shop for groceries while I accompany Melissa? We can meet here later and then go home,” Aidan said.
Cara was thunder-struck and her throat felt dry. She did not know how to react to this horrifying debacle. Melissa looked victorious and was smiling at her, her huge feline eyes glittering cruelly. She had to think fast.
[2016] The Precious Amish Baby Page 13
