Then he got out pen and ink and wrote a tag, which he fastened with wire to the roll of linoleum. It was addressed to
Richard Linville
Dallas
Gregory County South Dakota
CHAPTER II
THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE
“Good-by, Mary, you blessed old thing!”
“Good-by, Becky dear. Good luck. Come back soon.”
It seemed as though everybody in Platteville were at the Northwestern Station on Saturday afternoon. Old, young, and middle-aged stood on the platform, while parcels and boxes were passed through the window with the affectionate good-bys. The farewell was too much for Becky, and as the train pulled away from the mass of waving handkerchiefs, she sank back into the seat with tears in her eyes. “The dear, dear people!” she said.
“They gave us a fine send-off,” said Dick, speaking gruffly to hide a shake in his voice.
Becky shaded her eyes to look back at the little town set in its nest of green. As the train crossed the Rountree Branch on the trestle she looked up the valley to the graveyard where they had left Uncle Jim. Between her heart and her throat was a leaden weight that both pressed and choked. It seemed as though she must stop that train, clamber down the steps and run up the hillside to tell Uncle Jim that she couldn’t go.
“When do we eat?” inquired Phil.
Joan said nothing. She settled herself back into the red plush with delight written all over her expressive little face. Her last trip on the railroad had been made at the age of three months, and she had never dreamed of the splendors of velvet and veneer that lay behind the windows of a chair car. What joy to be going on a real trip, amid such luxury! She was oblivious to the dust on the seats, the cinders on the window-sills, the faint odor of lunch boxes that pervaded the car. She gave a bounce of ecstasy on the hard, plush seat. “Just like a throne!” she said to herself.
At Ipswich Phil made a trip to the water-cooler, being parched with thirst after four miles of travel, and it was during his absence that the news agent passed by Joan. A very friendly man, with much gold in his teeth and on his cap, who called her “sister,” and laid on the seat beside her a package of gum, a fortune-telling ring, and a bottle made of parafine, with a delicious-looking red liquid inside. He passed on without waiting for her grateful “Oh, thank you!”
Joan quickly concealed both bottle and ring. No use in exhibiting her treasures all at once; it would prolong the pleasure to produce them one at a time. Moreover, they wouldn’t have to be shared so generously. But she opened the package of gum, took out a thin wedge of Yucatan for Phil and a mint stick for herself; then put the rest away. When Phil came back her jaws were busy. She produced his stick.
“Where’d you get it?”
“None of your beeswax,” answered his sister.
Phil amicably accepted the dainty. “Of course you’d annex the spearmint for yourself,” he said. “Lookit, Jonie, quick. Ain’t that a swell cave up there in those rocks? If I find one like that in Dakota I’m going to fix it up and live in it. Betcha there’d be bears in a cave like that.”
“Uncle Jim said there weren’t any bears in South Dakota.”
“Well, there may be now, since all the settlers have come in. Bears always go where there’s good eating.”
Joan shivered happily. It was a terrifying thought—one that she feared, yet found delicious to harbor.
“It would be a swell place for wolves, too,” said Dick.
“They don’t have wolves; only coyotes.”
“Ain’t those wolves, I’d like to know?”
The door slammed, and the news agent came back through the car again. He guided his swinging tray of wares between the seats till he stopped in front of Joan, and gave a swift glance over her lap. “Well, sister, how were they?”
“Oh, fine!”
“Thirty-five cents,” said the news agent.
“Sir?” She must have misunderstood him.
“Thirty-five cents. Ten for the gum, ten for the cordial and fifteen for the ring.”
Joan turned very red. “I thought you gave them to me.”
The news agent showed the gold in his teeth, but his smile seemed, somehow, less pleasant. “What do you think I’m in business for?”
Joan cast a quick look across the car. Becky and Dick, with their backs turned, were looking out of the window. She produced a ten-cent piece from the little bead bag in her lap, and the ring and the bottle from her pocket. How she hated them both, now!
The agent looked at them with scorn. “I can’t sell those things after they’ve been bumping around in your pocket.”
“Do you mean you won’t take ’em back?”
“I sure won’t.”
Joan’s face was despairing. She flushed till even the freckles on her nose were invisible. “But I haven’t got any more money.”
“I can’t stand here gassing all day over thirty-five cents,” said the news agent. “Where’s yer folks?”
Phil stood up in his seat, and shook down his clothes. There was a little jingle. From his hip pocket he took out two nickels. From his blouse waist he extracted, one by one, five pennies. “Here’s a quarter,” he said to the man in uniform. You can take back the ring; she never damaged that package.”
The man looked disagreeable, but he picked up the money and the goods, and started away.
“Hey,” said Phil. “That bottle belongs to us. We paid for that.”
The news agent tossed the parafine bottle toward them, as he started away.
“You’re a good boy, Phil Linville,” said his sister gratefully. “That was the money you got for your rabbit.”
“You got to make it up to me, some way. Anyway, I guess there are plenty of rabbits where we’re going. C’mon, Jonie, I’ll let you drink the juice, an’ I’ll chew the parafine. Don’t let Beck see you; she’ll say we’ll spoil our meal.” And thus reminding himself, he crossed the aisle and touched his elder sister’s shoulder. “Becky,” he said, “When are we going to eat?”
* * * *
They ate their luncheon in the park in Galena, sitting under the shade of the hard maples. Then they climbed the steep hill that led to General Grant’s old home. It was after visiting hours, but the caretaker, moved by Becky’s almost reverent questions, unlocked the door and showed them through the old-fashioned rooms.
“Is she the Grants’ aunt?” whispered Joan, with her hand on Becky’s dress.
“Why?”
“’Cause she calls ’em all by their first names—Fred and Jesse and Julia.”
The caretaker heard the question, and smiled. “Don’t wonder you ask that,” she said, good-naturedly. “You know, living here in the house, and talking about them to people, the way I do, every day, you get so you feel as though they were your own folks. Nellie has great-grandchildren now, but I always think of her as a pretty little girl, looking into the mirror in that small room upstairs. And the General—why, I never go up the front steps that I don’t look for him sitting in that porch chair, with his cigar in his mouth.”
Joan was enraptured with Galena, with its steep little streets running into the rocky hills above the town, the vine-covered church that was built into the solid limestone behind it, the deserted graveyard that was now a playground. “I don’t see why General Grant ever went away from here,” she said. “He could sleigh ride down these hills so fast that he’d go up on the other side. Then all he’d have to do would be to turn his sled around. Wish we were going to live here instead of in Dakota.”
* * * *
It was ten o’clock at night before the Northwestern train came in, and Phil and Joan were dead with sleep when the Linvilles started on their way to Omaha. Becky, not daring the extravagance of a sleeper, made them as comfortable as she could with blankets and pillows, and the two went immediately to sleep. Dick stretched himself out on the seat with his overcoat and sweater, and soon followed suit. The train clanked its way over the prairies, with only an occasion
al light to show that the towns were far apart and small. Becky took out the steamer rug and curled up inside of it, but sleep would not come. All that was sure and tried lay behind, in Platteville; before her stretched the unknown. She thought of the change of cars ahead of her in Omaha, of the freight that must be identified and claimed at their journey’s end, of the stock that they must find, of the supplies that they must buy. How was she to do all these things as Uncle Jim would have them done? She felt inadequate for the task, too young and inexperienced to meet what the next day was sure to bring.
She reached out for her suit-case, which lay on the seat opposite, and took out a thin green book which lay near the top. The light which hung from the center of the car swung with the train’s motion, and cast shadows over the handwriting on the pages. It was the note-book which Uncle Jim had made for them in the last days of his illness. She turned the leaves till she came to:
OMAHA
Arrive 8:00 A.M. Illinois Central. Leave 8:45 A.M. on Northwestern.
N.W. train goes out at the same station. Eat a hot breakfast at the depot. Buy lunch for the next two meals. Don’t hurry. You have plenty of time.
This is the home stretch. You’ll love the prairie.
DALLAS
Arrive 8:00 P.M., and go to hotel three blocks up Main Street. In early morning buy your last supplies. Inquire at the Star Lumber Yard for the superintendent, Mr. Cleaver. He’ll tell you where our freight is stored and will see that the team and the wagon are brought over to meet you. Depend on what he tells you; he is the cream of South Dakota.
Get a man to help load the boxes on to the wagon. Start with box number 1, and don’t take more than the horses can carry. Dick will have to come back for the rest, later.
The bay horse is lazier than his partner; see that he takes his share of the pull.
19 miles straight north to the claim. Get a man to drive with you and help unload. Look for the prairie dog town as you drive past the hill with the watermark.
Play fair, everybody, and all help.
If you don’t like the prairie then I’ve counted wrong.
The dearness of Uncle Jim! Becky could almost hear his laughing voice in the words. He seemed so near, so with her as she read his instructions. The worry stopped. Things were not so scary after all. She pushed the little book up under her pillow, turned her back to the light, and went off to sleep.
* * * *
After they left Omaha the world began to change. It was opener country; the sky reached farther; the towns grew fewer. The men who boarded the train had wide-brimmed hats, and many of them wore red handkerchiefs about their necks. At Niobrara a party of Indians got on—the younger ones in store clothes, the father and mother in moccasins, flannel shirt and blanket shawl. At Norfolk the Linville children got off the car for a moment to stretch their tired legs, and there they met the prairie wind that Uncle Jim had described—the unceasing, never-waning breeze that tore at their clothes and zoomed in their ears; that attacked, rather than caressed. They were glad to get on the train again.
The occasional towns were only single streets of false-fronted stores with a few frame houses. The trees were rare wind-breaks. Finally both town and streets vanished in a sea of green grass that ran into the sky.
The west burned with a great fire. The sun turned into a molten ball of red gold. Phil began to rummage in the lunch box, but Joan, with her freckled face against the car window, watched the ball drop down behind the world. The skies turned from red to orange, from orange to purple, from purple to gray. The porter lit the lamp in the center of the car. Joan yielded her little frame to the swaying train. “Clink, clank” she sang to the accompaniment of the banging metal beneath her. Then she took out her block of paper, produced a much-chewed pencil and wrote:
Clink, clank, clink, clank,
The sun is setting behind the banck.
Ime going out to live on a clame
Where raseing mellons is our ame.
* * * *
It was evening when they pulled into Dallas. And there a little, flat town lay between the prairie behind them and the prairie ahead of them, with the two shining railway tracks ending in waving grass. Aunt Jule had been right about one thing: it was the Jumping-off Place.
“We can’t bother Mr. Cleaver tonight,” decided Becky. “We’ll go to the hotel, get to bed, and make an early start in the morning.”
The children made their way up the long street—the only street of the town. When Becky found the stores open she decided that they might save time by buying their supplies at night. So while the two children sat in the hotel, looking with interest at the moccasined Indians and the occasional cowboys that passed, Dick and Becky made their list and did their shopping.
“Ye gods,” said Dick as he jingled the two solitary dimes that were left from his twenty dollar bill, “How that money hopped off!”
Becky looked worried. “It did go fast. But everything we bought was a necessity.”
“Except that cloth you ordered. No use for that on a claim.”
“I bought three yards of cretonne! And those cartridges of yours cost a dollar and a half.”
“Don’t shake your gory locks at me! Those cartridges will give you fresh game to cook.”
Becky’s eyes snapped. “To cook for whom?”
“Thought you were going to can the scrapping?”
The girl looked ashamed. “I am. We mustn’t, Dick.”
“See that you don’t, then.”
Becky changed the subject. “I’m glad that’s the last of the spending. We ought not to need anything else but oil for months.”
“Ought not! We can’t!” Dick had had his first awakening to the slippery quality of money.
* * * *
The children were awake early next morning. At the lumber yard they inquired for the superintendent, and a chubby-faced man that looked like Santa Claus came out of the office at once. He shook hands all around with a heartiness that was a real welcome. “So you’re the young Linvilles,” he said. “I’ve heard enough about you so I know you all. I was afraid you’d given up the homesteading idea until I had that letter from your uncle three weeks ago. Is he going to be able to make the trip out, later?”
“Uncle Jim died last week,” said Becky.
The man saw the quick tears that sprang to four pairs of eyes. “I was afraid of that,” he said. “He wrote me that his mortgage on life was just about due, but I hoped he was mistaken. His assets, he said, he was going to send out here. And you’re the assets, I take it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dick, not quite understanding.
“Well, I suppose we’d better start your homesteading proposition, right away,” said Mr. Cleaver, briskly. “You’re a bit late, anyway, and we can’t afford to waste any time. Wait till I get my hat, and we’ll go and see about your supplies. Lucky thing your new team happens to be in town today. I saw it here less than an hour ago.”
“We bought all our supplies,” said Becky.
“When?”
“Last night, after the train got in.”
“How did you know what to buy?”
“Uncle Jim made out the list for us. Dick and I went together.”
“Aren’t you pretty young kids to be handling your own cash?”
“I’ve done the marketing ever since I was fourteen.”
Mr. Cleaver glanced at the resolute mouth, at the steady blue eyes, at the decided young chin. “You kids have the ‘git up and git,’” he said, with admiration in his voice. “You’ll do.”
There was admiration in his face, too, as he watched the goods being loaded. With cap off, sleeves rolled up and flannel shirt open at the throat, Dick fell upon the freight. Becky and the two youngest children joined in the carrying, while Dick and a man from the lumber yard lifted the heavier boxes. Mr. Cleaver went back and forth on various errands, but returned each time to find the work going on steadily. There was no disagreement, no waste of steps, no false moves. The four chil
dren moved like clockwork, and in less than an hour the Linville wagon was loaded and ready to start.
“Why not get all your goods out at once?” suggested Mr. Cleaver. “Wubber, a homesteader who lives a mile from your place, is in Dallas, and going right past your claim. If he has room on his wagon for the rest of your things you’d save time and it wouldn’t cost you any more than to make the extra trip yourselves.”
Becky and Dick eagerly agreed to the plan. A boy was sent out for Mr. Wubber, a blond man whose face was so sunburned that he seemed to have the wrong wig on. When he learned where the new homesteaders were to settle he refused to accept pay for the use of his team.
“You give me my noon meal, and we’ll call it square. My wife would give me tittery eye if I took pay fer hauling from a near neighbor.”
Joan and Phil looked at each other. What was tittery eye?
“How near?” asked Dick. “I thought you lived a mile from us.”
“That’s close neighbors in Tripp County,” said Mr. Wubber.
“Now,” said Mr. Cleaver, when the last crate had been loaded on to the wagons, “you boys had better start on. It’ll take you several hours, with those loads. I’m going to take Miss Becky and the small fry out with me in my car. They’ll be ready and waiting when you come. Wubber, you’ll stay and help unload the kids, won’t you?”
“Sure. I’ll stay till they’re moved in,” replied Mr. Wubber. He winked one eye, which dropped a strangely white lid down on his sunburned face. “This is wash day at our house, and there ain’t much to come home to on wash days.”
The Young Adult Award-Winners Megapack Page 61
