“I suppose you’re going to farm, too?”
“Now, Aunt Jule, you know we can’t farm; Uncle Jim didn’t have any idea of our doing it after—after he was sick,” said Dick, his face red with the combined effort of tack-pulling and temper-holding. “He said that we were to have only ten acres broken and planted to corn for the stock. We’re going to put in a garden, ourselves, so that with our vegetables and our milk and our eggs we can get along. We can plant a garden and take care of the chickens and the animals. But we’re no farmers.”
“You’re right about that,” said Aunt Jule, in a tone that was as aggravating as it was intended to be. “No farmers, and not much gardeners, either, unless the Dakota air gives you new energy. Becky’s a pretty fair hand for work, but it’ll be a new thing for you, young man. Hoeing potatoes ain’t as entertaining as track-teaming, you’ll find. And how are you going to pay for all the things you’ll need, out there? You’ll find you’re not millionaires, when the will’s read.”
Becky tried, for Uncle Jim’s sake, to keep resentment out of her voice. “We shan’t have to wait for a will to learn that. He always told us about his affairs, and we know exactly what we’ll have to live on. You see, Aunt Jule, he had everything—almost everything—bought and paid for last winter, for we expected to be out there early this spring. We’ll start out with enough to carry us until our first crop is due.”
“Easy come; easy go. You’ve never had any experience at handling money. What you going to count on for income if your crop fails?”
“We’ll have the rent from this house.”
“I s’pose you think twenty-five dollars a month would keep you.”
“It may have to.”
“Well, it’s a fool idea, all the way round. Of course I haven’t anything to say about it unless I’m appointed guardian, and I don’t suppose Jim ever looked ahead far enough to plan for that. I never was one to put my oar in, anyway. You children would be far better off if you stayed right here in Platteville. Becky’s all ready for normal school, and in three years she’d have her certificate and be ready to teach. Then she could support the rest of the family while Dick is preparing. Your uncle didn’t have any too much to leave you, anyway. You’d better not spend the last cent of it on a wild-goose chase like this.”
“But where could we live?” said Becky. “This house is rented to the Glovers. We’d have to find a home, and we haven’t enough money to live and go to school and to pay rent, too. And we’d have to give up that land. Uncle Jim had already filed on it, he’d built the barn and the shack, and he paid for the stock this spring. A lot of our goods are already out there. No, we’ve gone too far to back out now. Uncle Jim thought it was best to go ahead. And besides, Aunt Jule, now that he’s—gone, I just feel as though I can’t stay on without him.” She pulled at a bent and rusty tack with unseeing eyes.
“Nonsense,” said Aunt Jule. “You can’t give up to any such feeling as that. Death comes to everybody in this world, sooner or later. I was prostrated when I lost Sam, but where would I be if I had given in to my grief? And he was a husband, not an uncle. You’ve all got to brace up, just as I did.”
Dick rubbed his coat sleeve across his eyes. “We are bracing up,” he said fiercely.
Aunt Jule settled back in her rocker. “Well, I s’pose there’s no use trying to tell you anything if your uncle’s got your affairs all settled. You won’t starve during the summer—you’ll probably have enough money to carry you for awhile. But you’ll be back as soon as cold weather starts, and I’ll be expected to take the four of you in.”
Becky shook her head.
“You needn’t worry; we’d never come to you,” exclaimed Dick.
“You may be glad to come, yet. I’ve heard those Dakota stories before. No homesteader is ever able to keep the land he settles; it always goes back to the bank that has loaned him money. And four children! How are you going to run a farm? Why, you’re not even old enough yet to keep from fighting among yourselves!”
It was impossible to deny this, much as they longed to do it. Neither meekness nor tolerance were characteristics of the Linvilles. Becky ignored the accusation, but she answered with spirit: “We don’t intend to ‘run a farm.’ Uncle Jim had no idea of our doing that. What we expected to do was to hold down that claim for fourteen months till we got the title to the land. And we’re going to do it.”
“Fourteen months is fourteen months,” remarked Aunt Jule, impersonally. “There’ll be no grocery store to run to for canned peas, and wood and water won’t carry themselves.”
Over her candlestick Becky gave Dick a wink. It was a wink of large proportions, signifying caution, self-restraint, and a third element which Dick well understood. Being interpreted it meant “The less you say the less chance she gets.” And knowing the truth of that hint, the boy held his tongue as well as his temper. It was Becky who said slowly:
“We know that it’s going to be hard living, Aunt Jule; Uncle Jim told us the bad things as well as the good. But he had everything planned for us, and we’re going to do the best we can. If it were twice as hard living as he told us we’d still go, because he wanted it. I can go to normal school after we prove up, but it’s the proving up we’re going to do first.”
Aunt Julia’s sharp little eyes swept over the room, taking note of all the gaps. “So that’s why you’ve been moving out things, right along. I believe you gave me to understand that you were house-cleaning.”
“That was I; not Beck,” said her nephew, without a show of repentance. “I didn’t tell you a lie, either. You asked me if we were house-cleaning, and I told you that it was house-cleaning time. It is, isn’t it?”
Aunt Julia ignored him. “You going to take all the furniture, Becky?”
“Part of it. Uncle Jim had everything that we would want listed, and most of it has already gone out. We’re going to pack the few last things we’ll need. The rest we’ll store or sell.”
Aunt Jule made a noise with her tongue that sounded like “tchick, tchick.” “Well, it’s a pretty poor notion, to my way of thinking. However, I wasn’t asked for my opinion, and I don’t intend to give it. You going to have enough money to carry you?”
“We’re going to have enough to make our first payment on the land, to pay for our breaking, and what supplies we’ll need this summer. Uncle Jim had canned goods and claim clothes bought for a year, and he said we wouldn’t need much else. The horses and wagon and the cow are paid for. Even the chickens are ordered. He thought of everything. But of course we’ve got to help ourselves.”
“I’m surprised that your uncle was that practical. It’s the wild life out there that took his fancy—not the farming. He was always crazy about out-of-door things. I think that’s what gave him his stroke—the continual tramping around with you kids. He never had any sense about taking care of himself.”
“He never thought about himself; always about us,” said Becky. She faced the wall to hide the tears that would rise.
“He sure was dippy about wild things,” agreed Dick. “He said when he got to Dakota he was going to breathe for the first time since he left the sea. It took a hundred and sixty acres of open land, he said, to give a man a real breath of air.” The boy pulled out a tack with a strong dig of his screw-driver. “There, that’s the last. We’re clear around, Beck.”
His aunt rose from her chair. “I s’pose I might as well move into the sitting-room if you’re going to roll that linoleum. I can talk just as well through the door.”
Even through her tears Becky smiled at Dick’s glance. Aunt Jule never had any difficulty in making speech, anywhere.
Their aunt settled herself in the doorway. “I was surprised, this afternoon, when I didn’t see you in the black veil I sent over to you. He was only your uncle, but he’s been a real father to you, and that blue hat of yours was too gay for a funeral.”
“It was what he wanted, Aunt Julia. He said he hoped to goodness we wouldn’t see black every time we
thought of him.”
Dick broke the bonds of hospitality, at last. “Uncle Jim hated mourning clothes. He used to say it was easier to put on black after folks were gone than to treat them white while they were here. He told Beck to shy if you tried to put a mourning net on her, Aunt Jule.”
His aunt pushed back the chair from the doorway. “Well, I see there’s no advising you children. I try to do my best for you because I can’t forget that your mother was Sam’s own sister, but you’re set in your own way, just as she and Jim always were. You’ll have to try out the Dakota idea for yourself. Only don’t come crying back to me when your money’s all gone, and you want a home.”
Dick rolled the linoleum over so fiercely that he almost caught her feet in it. “We won’t! We won’t!” he exclaimed. “We’d hate living with you just as much as you’d hate having us.”
“You needn’t snap at me that way,” said Aunt Jule. “Even your Uncle Jim wouldn’t approve of your being so sassy. I guess I’ll be getting along before you roll my shoes in with your oilcloth.” She raised herself stiffly from her seat. “I s’posc you’re not thinking of taking that big red chair with you, are you? That would be hard to pack. I’ll be glad to keep it for you if you want to store it; it’s the most comfortable chair you have.”
“We’re going to crate it and send it out to Dakota.”
“Well, it’s yours; take it if you want. When are you going?”
“Next Saturday. We’ve got to be out of the house by that time, for the Glovers want to move in Monday. There isn’t so much left for us to do; we were almost packed when Uncle Jim was taken sick. I suppose our goods are already in Dakota.”
“Piling up freight charges,” commented Aunt Jule cheerily. “Well, I think I’ll be going on; my advice doesn’t seem to be worth anything to either of you. School’s about out, anyway, and I don’t suppose one summer of homesteading is going to hurt you. Only when you come back in the fall with everything spent, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She pulled her black cape around her shoulders, and stepped over the roll of linoleum.
“We won’t,” promised Dick.
The kitchen door closed behind Aunt Jule. Then it opened again, wide enough to admit her face. “Have you thought of rattlesnakes?” she asked. Then she shut the door and walked briskly down the gravel walk.
Brother and sister faced each other in the kitchen. “Can you beat that?” demanded Dick. “Our most comfortable chair; therefore leave it with her.”
“I don’t mind the chair,” said Becky. “But I can’t stand it when she begins on Uncle Jim—darling Uncle Jim, who never had a word of hate for anyone in the world, even his crank of a sister-in-law.”
“Well, there’s one good thing about Aunt Jule: she makes you so mad at her that you forget everything else—even his dying. And I’m glad not to think about that, even for a minute.”
Becky was laying newspaper and burlap down on the floor. “We might as well finish this up tonight,” she said. “That will leave the last crating for tomorrow. Thursday we’ll pack the trunks; Friday we’ll store the beds and sleep at the Dennisons’; and Saturday—” She did not finish the sentence.
* * * *
Their first real knowing of Uncle Jim had come eight years before. Dick’s earliest memory of him had been of a pair of arms, with a blue anchor tattooed on one of the wrists, holding him up to kiss his father’s dead face. And Becky, who had been nine, remembered the stream of tears that had flowed down her mother’s face as Uncle Jim had said: “You’re all going back with me. Now I can have what I’ve always wanted—a home.” He had sold their little house in Trenton, packed their household goods, and brought the whole family, carrying the two babies himself, back to the old home in Platteville. “I’m tired of the sea,” he said. “I’ll be glad to settle down.” It was years before Becky stopped believing that, and realized that making the home was not wholly a favor to Uncle Jim. For the first four years he had been father to the little family; after that his duties were doubled, for he had to be mother as well. Becky was thirteen when Mrs. Linville died, and she could still remember her uncle’s: “It’s up to you and me now, Becky. If you’ll do the home-making I’ll do the cooking and the spanking.” No one but Uncle Jim could have made her smile, then.
And so the Linville home went on. Aunt Jule shook her head over the way “Mary’s children were being raised,” and said it was the craziest house she had ever seen. Uncle Jim’s housekeeping was done by a process of elimination. His sailor’s training had given him a hatred for uncleanliness or disorder, but it had also taught him what was necessary and what unnecessary for living. Of books, fresh air, games, music, light, and food the house was full; of ornaments and draperies, and what Uncle Jim called “gim-cracks” there were none. Before and after his business hours Becky and he had fought out the cooking together; he had given the two older children their first lessons in darning. He had enforced a system of co-operation, of order, and of waiting upon themselves. He had let them fill the house with playfellows and gayety and noise, but he had no patience with laziness or selfishness or fine airs. As a house Uncle Jim’s establishment may not have been a perfect success; as a home it was a triumph.
Two years before, when the Rosebud Indian Reservation was thrown open for settlement, Uncle Jim had gone out to file on the land. He had not been one of the fortunates who drew claims, but he came back in love with the country and enthusiastic about its future. “I don’t believe I’d ever be lonely for salt water, out there,” he confided to Becky. “Those prairies are seas made out of grass.”
In the fall following, when all of the land not already filed upon was thrown open to squatters, he went out again. He found a quarter-section which had been left tenantless because of a stony hill that was included within its limits. True, the hill occupied ten acres of the three hundred and sixty, but the soil was a rich, sandy loam, all of the land except that hill was fit for cultivation, and a little creek, winding its way through the level meadow, would be a fine thing for stock. He filed on the claim, “established residence” by putting up a good-sized barn and a smaller shack, and after a month of work had come home to the children full of enthusiasm. All winter they had planned and purchased and packed, intending to start for the new home in the early spring. And then, the week before they were ready to leave, with almost all their household goods sent on before them, a clot of blood in Uncle Jim’s brain had halted everything. Gradually movement and speech came back to the stricken man, but strength had evidently gone to stay. All his thought during those last weeks of his life had been of the children and their new home. His love and his will dominated the nerveless hands and the feeble brain. He compelled himself to live long enough to plan their fourteen months of homesteading for them. Then he died.
Becky’s thoughts went back over that last year as she rolled the papers about the linoleum. The homesteading had seemed a lark and an adventure with Uncle Jim there to direct, to decide, and to superintend. But now it was a leap into the dark, a trip on an uncharted sea without a pilot. Could she hold the crew together, and steer the boat? Dared she start out on that unknown sea, with no compass but Uncle Jim’s notebook, no rudder but the memory of his words? She dared not try it. And yet she must go.
“Dick,” she said softly. She hesitated, and tucked in the ends of the newspapers as she felt for the right words.
“Speak up,” encouraged Dick. “What’s eating you?”
Becky dropped back upon her knees. “I’m scared to death to start off.”
“Aunt Jule’s done that to you—the old crape-hanger.”
“No, it isn’t Aunt Jule; it’s I. I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to put it across. I’m not afraid of snakes or blizzards or hard work, but I’m panicky about myself. Maybe I’m not going to be big enough to do it if I don’t have Uncle Jim.”
“You’ll not be doing it alone; you’ll have us.”
“The kids will help, of course, but they aren’t old enoug
h to take any responsibility. It’s the responsibility I dread.”
“You won’t have to take all of it, Dumb-bell. I’m going to hold up my end, ain’t I?”
“I know you will, Dick; I’m sure of that. But it isn’t just the work and the planning! It’s the keeping together. I don’t know if we can do that. We’ve got to stand against everybody else, just as Uncle Jim said. Oh, Dick, we mustn’t fight!” She laid a dusty hand on his grimy overalls.
“Well, I won’t fight if you treat me right,” said her brother gruffly. He was boy enough to wriggle away from her caress, but man enough to understand what that caress meant. “Uncle Jim told me what he wanted me to do, and I’m going to do it,” he said, in a brusque voice. “We’ll work it out, some way, Beck. Hold those papers down, and let me do the rolling.”
A small, white-robed figure stood in the doorway, a sharp-chinned little girl, with a freckled nose, and gray-green eyes. “Aunt Jule gone?” she asked.
“Look in the most comfortable seat; if she’s not there she isn’t here,” said Dick.
“Did you tell her that she could have the red chair?”
“Neither the red chair, nor you and Phil. I think with a little urging she would have kept all three of you,” teased her brother.
“She wouldn’t keep me,” said Joan. “I never would stay in her horrible house.” And she shivered.
“You’d better run back to bed,” said Becky. “Don’t you dare take cold before Saturday.”
“I can’t sleep. I just get about there, and then I think of him again.”
Becky smiled at her through tears. “Remember what he told you, Joan.”
“I do,” said the little girl, “But sometimes I can’t.”
“Come on up,” said Becky. “I’ll tuck you in.” She squeezed the thin little hand as the two went back upstairs together.
Dick wrapped burlap over the long roll of linoleum, and tied each end with rope. A new, queer sensation seemed to hang about a spot somewhere between his heart and his throat—a feeling that he would fasten up the old part of his life when he turned the key in the door. School days, track team, baseball nine, the skating rink, old friends, would be left behind when he went. Would there be something to take their place in that new country that Uncle Jim loved so well? He stood a moment, looking around the dismantled room—at the bright spot on the wall that the kitchen clock had covered, the pencil lines on the doorway, where Uncle Jim had measured heights on each birthday, the empty table drawer with a single knife left in it, the mark that Uncle Jim’s rubber heel had made when the pantry floor was newly varnished.
The Young Adult Award-Winners Megapack Page 60
