Dick milked the cow, the two children went to the spring for more water, and Becky fried bacon and eggs. The afternoon breeze died down. Little gold-tinged clouds began to float in the sky. The children, with less wrangling than usual, put the supper dishes back on the kitchen shelves. And the four young homesteaders, walking close together for companionship, went forth to look at their land. First down to the creek that twisted like a snake back and through the claim. It lay open to the sky, with no trees or brush to shade it. A little thicket of wild plums grew between it and the house—the nearest approach to a tree that was in sight.
“Gee,” said Dick, “It’s swell to have a creek on the place.”
“We’ve always wanted to own some water of our own, as long as we’ve lived,” said Becky, “and now we do.”
Dick’s face showed his pleasure. “I’m going to dam it up when I find the right place. No reason why we can’t have a swimming hole of our own.”
Phil and Joan gave a squeal of delight. “Maybe we can have swans,” suggested Joan. “I’d love to have swans.”
Phil eyed her with scorn. “Why don’t you suggest osteriches! I’m going to have ducks.”
“Smartie! You think you’re the bossee of the place.”
“Whenever you’re tempted to scrap,” sang Dick.
And the children joined in the gay chorus of Uncle Jim’s Fight Song:
Remember your mouth is a trap…
As long as your teeth are set snugly and tight
You’ve a grip on yourself and the fellow you fight,
And the madder he gets, why the harder you bite…
So whenever you’re having a scrap
Remember your mouth is a trap.
“Le’s go over and hunt up the prairie dog town,” suggested Phil. “Mr. Cleaver showed us where it is: between those two hill-ish places.” He pointed to a ravine that lay ahead of them.
The young homesteaders plowed their way through the shaggy grass that grew so lush and green along the slough. They came out upon level ground where the sod had been gnawed short over an acre or so of land, and dwarf-like figures stood motionless about a yard apart. There were dozens of them, sitting up on their hind legs and looking curiously at their visitors. One by one they barked, shook their small tails and disappeared into the holes below them as the children approached.
“No wonder they call it a town. Look at the holes, all in rows, like streets,” said Joan.
“Mr. Cleaver says owls live in ’em, too,” added Phil. “He said they came flying in, every afternoon, and went right down into the holes with the dogs.”
“Maybe the prairie dogs have ’em for nurse girls,” said Joan, down on her knees and peering into the hole nearest her. “Owls wouldn’t mind being up in the night.”
“Look out!” sang out Dick. He grabbed her roughly by the shoulder, pulled her up on to her feet, and to one side. Almost on the spot where she had been kneeling a dust-colored loop of horrid life uncurled and writhed away through the deep grass.
“Now you see what you’ve got to look out for,” cried Dick. “Just luck that you didn’t get bitten.”
“Was that a snake?” breathed Joan, white and scared.
“It was a rattler. They always hang around prairie dogs, Uncle Jim said. I guess you’ve had enough for one day, Jonie. Tomorrow I’ll get out the canes Uncle Jim made for us to carry when we went through tall grass. Better to scare ’em off than get a bite.”
Phil looked his delight. “Oh gee, oh gee,” he breathed in ecstasy. “It was as thick as my arm. I wish Clem Hayden could a’ seen that: If we only had someone to show it to!”
“That,” predicted Dick, “is going to be the hardest thing about homesteading. There won’t be people to show things to.”
They turned back to the west to find the sky ablaze. Long islands of violet cloud ran into a sea of red and orange fire. The sun was a great ball of molten gold that turned to red as they watched, and seemed to fill the entire sea. It went lower and lower in the western sky; then it sank suddenly. In a flash it was night. The frogs began to sing; along the creek tiny flashes of light began to show, now appearing, then vanishing, like shiny winks.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Joan.
“Will o’ the wisps,” explained Becky. “It’s the phosphorescence in that damp ground.”
The dusk hid the rapt look on the little face at her side. Children who live with ten-year-old brothers have learned when to keep quiet, and how to avoid ridicule. Phosphorescence was a grown-up explanation; it was just as well not to dispute it. But one might have one’s own thoughts. And Joan, stumbling over the dusky prairie at Becky’s side, knew that she was to live for fourteen months in a wonder world, where fairy lights shone at night and fairy folk danced at the side of a creek.
“Le’s climb the big hill before dark,” suggested Phil.
“No,” said Becky firmly. “Not tonight. We’re all dead tired, and tomorrow’s going to be a big day of work. Bed’s the place for us.”
The frogs were sending out a cracked chorus of “Jer-ro-me, Jerr-rr-rome,” from the creek as they crept into their new beds. The little ones fell asleep almost as soon as they touched their pillows. Dick yawned heavily, and turned on his cot.
“Are you comfortable?” Becky called. He didn’t answer, and she said nothing more.
* * * *
There was a loud hammering on the kitchen door. Becky gave a sudden start in bed. It seemed to her that she was back in Platteville, and Uncle Jim was knocking on his bed post to ask for a drink. But the bright light was streaming through the half-way partitions, and the hot prairie sun shone through the open windows.
“I’m coming,” she called, hurriedly getting into her clothes.
On the little platform that Uncle Jim had built outside of the back door stood three small children. The moment she opened the door, and saw the three tow-heads set above the burnt-brown faces, Becky knew where they belonged. “Isn’t your name Wubber?” she asked.
The older girl, a child of ten, nodded a shy assent. “Ma wants to borry an east cake,” she explained.
“Come in while I get it for you,” said Becky—“You’re the first visitors we’ve had. Tell me your names, so I’ll know what to call you.”
“I’m Crystal,” said the spokeswoman. “This here one is Venus. And the boy over there is Autumn.”
The Linville children, partly dressed, peeped through the bedroom door at their guests. “Those are cow names,” commented Phil.
Becky gave him a warning glance. “No cows ever had as pretty names as those. Who chose them for you?”
“Ma. She’s the namer one.”
“Pull in two chairs, Phil, so the children can sit down. Venus will have to sit on a box.”
“We got three chairs to our house,” said Venus.
“Have you any more children at home?”
“We got Twinkle. She’s two.”
Becky got out the yeast cake and handed it to the little girl, but the Wubber family showed no inclination to move. Getting breakfast in such crowded quarters was out of the question, and Becky wondered how long the visit was to last. “Suppose you children run out and play. Phil and Joan may go, too, until their breakfast’s ready. Put on your overalls and look out for snakes.”
“Le’s go to the creek,” suggested Phil.
The oldest Wubber lingered a moment at the door.
“What is it, Crystal?”
“Ma said if you seemed willing about the east cake I was to borry a tablespoon of sody, too.”
The little girl took the twisted paper of soda and hurried away to join the others, just as Dick came through the doorway.
“Who are our guests?”
“The Wubbers—Crystal, Venus, and Autumn. Twinkle is at home.”
Dick gazed out of the window. “They look like Huldah, Freda, and Ira. Was this a social call—east and west clasp hands?”
“Western hands clasp ‘east,’” laughed Becky. “The
y came over for yeast cakes and soda.”
“Hope they won’t stay long. I want the kids to help me plant a garden. We’re too late to put it off another day.”
The Linville children were full of enthusiasm when they came in to breakfast. “The creek is full of tame suckers,” exulted Phil.
“How can suckers be tame?”
“They are tame,” defended Joan. “They aren’t scared of you at all. They come right up to you. Autumn caught four.”
“Why, Joan, he had no fishing tackle.”
“He didn’t need any; he caught ’em in his fingers. Just put his hands down in the water at the deepest hole, and held ’em terrible still. Then when they swam by he caught ’em, just like lightning. He took ’em home for dinner; said he s’posed maybe his mother would cook ’em, if she didn’t have one of her laying streaks.”
“Laying streaks? What did he mean?”
“I asked him, and he said she laid around, some days. He says she ain’t one for work.”
“Hope you kids don’t feel that way,” said Dick. “We’ve got to start the garden, today.”
Phil sighed. “I’ll betcha the prairie is better to play on than to work on,” he predicted.
Becky hurried through the breakfast dishes while Dick sought Uncle Jim’s green book. He was silent so long that Becky called to him. “Does it tell us how to start?”
“I should say it does. Look, Beck, he’s drawn the whole plan of the garden. Even marked the vegetables down, in rows for us, and has the plot measured. No way of making a botch if we follow his directions. Gee, doesn’t this sound like him:
When you work in the garden start early and quit from noon till two o’clock. If you get a sunstroke you won’t need vegetables.
String beans are pretty safe things to pin your faith to. Only one planting to a summer.
You’re hungrier for potatoes when you’re eating them than when you’re planting them.
The earlier you get Becky’s pieplant started the earlier she’ll have rhubarb pie for you.”
Becky pulled out her handkerchief to wipe her eyes. Then she turned back to her dishes. “I’ll be out to help in a minute,” she said. “You start along, Dick.”
* * * *
The sod had been turned up the fall before. It had been plowed and harrowed and disked in the plot Uncle Jim had set apart for the garden. Even with all that work it didn’t look like Wisconsin soil; it was tough of fibre, and the roots of wild roses that ran through it were like wires. It didn’t seem possible to the children, remembering the powdery loam of the Platteville garden, that seeds would grow in it, but Uncle Jim must have known. They took the book out into the field, and held the corners of the leaves down with clods of earth while they planted. Turnips and carrots, tomatoes, onions, melons, and cucumbers all dropped, seed by seed, along their rows of string. Becky planned quickly prepared meals, and the children worked with unusual steadfastness and energy.
The man from Dallas drove out with new panes of glass, and not alone repaired the pump and the windows, but presented Becky with two castor bean plants which had already put out their first four leaves. “The elm trees of Dakota,” he told her. They were a gift from Mr. Cleaver, he said, who had sent word that he wanted the family to have some shade to sit under. Becky planted one on either side of the door, carried a bucket full of water from the creek to water them, and sent back her grateful thanks to their new friend. “Tell him I’m going to call them Castor and Pollux” she said.
“Never heard ’em called Ann Pollacks before,” said the Dallas man. “Castor beans is the Dakota name for ’em.”
It was a long day, and a hot one, and when the sun went down in a burst of flaming cloud the children were tired. Becky suggested that the two small ones leave the kitchen stoop where they were helping Dick cut the seed potatoes, and go to the spring for fresh water. “The man said this morning that the well water would taste queer for a while after the pump was fixed.” The children set off eagerly, and Becky took their place, cutting the eyes out of the potatoes they had brought from Wisconsin. The hard work of the past two days had taken their toll of enthusiasm, and the brother and sister talked soberly, like man and woman, as they worked.
“Pretty tired?” asked Becky.
Dick straightened up from the bushel basket. “Dead,” he confessed. “I’ve got an ache instead of a back, tonight. I’m going to bed the moment these are done.”
“I’ll finish them.”
“You will not; you haven’t been exactly frittering away the day, yourself.”
Becky was touched. Chivalry was a new trait in Dick, and one that she rejoiced to see. Homesteading wasn’t going to be so bad if she was going to share it with someone else; it wasn’t the being a martyr, but the feeling yourself one, that made hardship. Evidently Dick had started out with the idea he was to take his share of whatever came.
“Do you think we’re going to swing it, Dick?” she asked.
Dick looked sober. “It’s bigger than I thought it was going to be. Plenty of work in front of us. But some things about the place are great; guess it’ll be worth while in the end. Anyway, I’m not planning to go back to Aunt Jule.”
The fairy castles of golden cloud turned into masses of violet. The hush of evening began to close them in.
“It’s wonderful country,” said Becky, still cutting potatoes as she looked across at the blue buttes that were melting into sky. “I can hardly believe yet, that it is ours.”
“In fourteen months more,” exulted Dick.
A sound of hurrying feet in the grass; hurrying feet and panting breath. The children came tearing across the creek, breathless with excitement, with their pail still empty.
“Those boys—at the spring—said it was theirs—we shouldn’t—set the dog on us,” they cried, interrupting each other with broken snatches of sentences.
“Hey, calm down. One at a time,” ordered Dick. “You tell, Phil; Joan has no breath left.”
“We were up at the spring filling our pail, and two kids came along with a dog. They told us to get out of there or they’d bust our faces in. We told ’em we was only getting water, and they said it was their water, and we sure had our nerve to come and help ourselves. They were a lot biggern us and they had the dog too, so we didn’t dare sass ’em back. We thought we’d fill the pail and come away, but as fast as we had it full they’d empty it. They told us we had no business up there at all; that it was their claim, and they’d been living on it for months. Finely they set the dog on us and we had to run off. They’ve got a shack just over the hill from the spring; we saw the roof.”
“They told us to keep away from the water if we knew what was good for us,” added Joan.
Dick raised his bent shoulders from the potato cutting. “Do you mean the shack is on this claim?”
“Yes,” said the children together.
“Are you sure? How do you know?”
“Mr. Cleaver showed us where our stake is set; their shack is way this side.”
Dick stuck his knife into a potato and stood up. “I’m going up to see about that.”
“Oh, Dick, you’re so tired. And the kids are probably mistaken about the shack. The boys were just teasing them.”
“I’ll feel better if I go up.”
“Then I’m going with you. There are two of those boys, and I’m afraid you’ll have trouble with them.”
“You’re going to do no such thing. It’s no place for you.”
“I’m afraid to have you go up there alone. There might be trouble.”
“I don’t expect any trouble, but I’ve got to see that shack.”
“Then let me go, too.”
Dick said no, with decision and emphasis, and Becky unwillingly had to agree. That new chivalry was a comfort and a joy, but it had its price. If Becky was to be given protection she must be willing to take it; she must not spoil this new feeling of responsibility by being too independent. “All right,” she said meekly.
/> Dick’s tall figure lumbered away through the twilight. Becky noticed, as she watched him go, that he had seemed to broaden out in the last few weeks. He was almost a man in size, and she was glad of it. He would need strength if at fifteen the protection of the family fell upon him.
The boy went through the tangled slough grass, crossed the creek, and climbed the hill to the spring. No one was in sight as he stooped to drink. The scolding water and a complaining wood dove made the only sounds he heard. Then over the hill a dog barked, and another dog answered. He climbed higher, following the sound, till he saw a light in a window. It came from a small shack standing on the hillside. It was a box of a house with one window and a stovepipe sticking through the roof; it was built of boards and covered with building paper that the wind had torn loose. The children were right. The shack certainly stood within the Linville boundary line.
As Dick approached two dogs began to strain at their leashes and bark madly. “Hello,” he called, over the uproar.
The door opened, and a man and two half-grown boys appeared in the oblong of light.
“What you want?” demanded the man.
Dick ignored the surly tone. “I’m Linville,” he said. “We’re your new neighbors; just came yesterday. We found our pump out of order when we came, and we’ve been using the spring. When the children came up for water tonight they said some boys sent them off. I thought I’d come up and ask you if there was any reason why that spring shouldn’t be used.”
The boys snickered in a silly, awkward way. The father shook the ashes out of his pipe. “You’re right there’s a reason! I ain’t furnishing water to trespassers.”
“But I understood that the spring was on our land.”
“Well, change your understanding, sonny; it ’taint. It’s on mine.”
“What section do you call yours?”
“Don’t know any reason why you should be pinning me down to st’istics. But I’d as lieve tell you that this is Section twenty-three.”
“But that’s our claim.”
The dogs moved up around his ankles. The man swore. “It is, is it? Well, I’ll have you know, you young snapping turtle, that it’s mine.”
The Young Adult Award-Winners Megapack Page 63
