“You’ll have no more trouble with the Welps,” said Mr. Trainer, looking very pleased.
“Why not?”
“They’re going to move away.”
“When?”
“Soon as the roads are dry enough to freight their goods.”
“Are you sure?”
“Dead sure,” said Mr. Trainer. The other parents laughed. Everybody seemed pleased at something.
“Did Mr. Welp tell you he was going away to stay?”
“We told him,” answered Mr. Lambert. “We men made a call on him on our way over here—a neighborly call, but a business one, too. We told him we didn’t like his looks—his nor his family’s—and that we’d decided that Tripp County air wasn’t healthy for any of them. We thought he’d better move before any more cows got loose or children were abused; we were sick of seeing him pick on women and kids. He got righting mad, of course, and said it was a free country; that he had this claim before you did, and he was going to keep it if he had to mortgage his soul for it.”
“Lambert told him his soul was mighty poor security, and no bank would take it,” put in Mr. Trainer.
“We all got after him, finally,” said Mr. Lambert, “and told him that we weren’t going to stand for him any longer. That if he dared go on with his contest we’d all get up and swear, lie or no lie, that you Linvilles were here first; he wouldn’t get one neighbor to testify for him. We mentioned, too, that tar and feathers could be got hold of without any trouble, and that we’d just about got to the tar and feather stage of the game. We told him that we’d give him fifty dollars for his shack—that’s about forty-three dollars more than it’s worth—and that he’d have to light out. He could decide than and there.”
“And what did he do?” asked Becky, breathless with suspense.
“Cussed us all round, kicked the cat, and finally growled out that he’d go as soon as the roads dried up. I believe he mentioned something about not caring much for his neighbors, either, but we didn’t wait for his comments. We picked up our women folks and came over here to celebrate.”
“It’s a wonderful celebration,” said Becky. “It’s two gifts you’ve brought me, not one; my, won’t the Linvilles sleep well tonight!”
“A nice easy feeling all around,” said Mr. Trainer. “I guess there ain’t much doubt, now, of our keeping our teacher.”
The Wubbers offered Becky a seat in their wagon when the party started home, but she was not quite ready to leave. She sent the two children with them, waved a grateful good-by to the committee, and turned back to the schoolroom for a few last duties. She sang as she cleaned the blackboard, pushed back the desks and picked up the waste paper from the floor. The fear and menace of her life was gone now; she felt safe and happy. And that safety and happiness had been purchased by the fifty pieces of silver that had been given, a dime and a quarter at a time, by her poverty-stricken neighbors. They had come from homes where bread was needed, and potatoes; where there was no meat, and not enough heat, and insufficient clothes. Yet it had been given graciously and willingly—a grateful thank-offering from appreciative hearts.
Had it ever been that she thought the prairie an unfriendly place? That seemed years ago. It was her school now; her claim. Dakota was her home.
As she lifted Joan’s spelling book to carry home with her, a paper fell out on the floor. Becky, picking it up, read:
The Welps they are so mene a lot
I wisch theyd die upon the spot
not both the grils that can not help
from being souch a thing as Welp
But I wold be verry verry glad if bill and pete
wold be fond ded upon the strete.
Becky looked and laughed. “There’s a better solution than that, Miss Joan,” she said to the air. “Just wait until I get home and tell you!”
* * * *
Under the prairie winds the roads dried quickly, and the following Sunday the Cleavers came over the Linville trail to congratulate Becky. She had become famous, said Mr. Cleaver, with a smile that held pride as well as fun; the Dallas News had not alone a story, but an editorial about her that had been copied everywhere in the state, and the history of her night in the blizzard had gone all over the country.
“Prairie Heroine Defies Elements,” said Dick, with a grin.
“That’ll be all from you, young man,” replied Mr. Cleaver. “You can spend your time in being proud of that sister of yours. She’s better known in South Dakota than I am after thirty years of residence here. Everybody’s talking about her.”
“Have you seen her vase?” asked Dick.
Becky threw a warning glance at him. Not even to the Cleavers would she admit that there was anything unbeautiful in that gift.
The children could not wait to tell that the Welp family were leaving the neighborhood. “That’s what we’re celebrating today,” said Becky. “Dick killed a chicken for us, and we’re not going to have turnip or prunes! In other words, it’s a holiday. How lucky you happened along when it’s roast chicken instead of eggs served in a frying pan.”
Mr. Cleaver went out with Dick to see the work that had been done on the dam during the last days of fall. He had built a wall across the creek-bed, plastered the cracks, and built an over-flow for the water. “I didn’t have much heart in the work when I started it,” he explained. “I was afraid I was doing it for the Welps. But that worry’s over now.”
“You’ll have a real lake here when the ice melts,” said Mr. Cleaver.
“That’s what I’m after,” said the boy. “Beck misses the trees an awful lot. I never think of that part of Platteville, but you know how girls are: they’ll put up with all kinds of trouble without a word, and then go dippy over missing a hill. Just as soon as the frost gets out of the ground I’m going to move up a few cottonwoods and an ash from the thicket, and Mr. Dennison is going to send me some cedars and a couple of hard maples from home. I think they’ll grow near the water. Becky never could get over the birds trying to find shade behind the fence posts, last summer, and I’m going to see that she has a little herself when it gets a hundred in the shade. She was a pretty good scout last year, and hot weather is fierce on her, too.”
“Your fourteen months will be up next summer.”
“Yes, the last of next July.”
“Are you going to be able to meet your payments?”
“Yes, we’re all right now—if nobody’s sick. We have new tenants in the Platteville house, and with Beck teaching school we’ll be on Easy Street. It won’t be long now before I can help.”
“You don’t seem to have been exactly idle all the time you’ve been out here. What will you do after your fourteen months are up? Think you’d be satisfied to stay on in Dakota?”
Dick looked abashed, but pleased at the praise. “Sure,” he answered. “I didn’t feel that way last summer, when things looked so black. But living’s easier now, and it gets easier every day. The kids look better than they ever did before in their lives—I guess we all do—and we’re learning how to get along better. I’d like to stay and see what we can make out of the place as a farm, not a claim. We’ve just got things started to work for us, and it’s fun to see how they turn out. But the staying’s up to Beck.”
“Is she lonely for Platteville?”
“Well, I don’t know what to say. She loves this place more than I do, I believe. You know Becky; she can get drunk on a sunset. But she doesn’t get over Uncle Jim. She says she left him behind in Platteville; that he’s never seemed to be out here with us. Of course she doesn’t kick about living here—Beck never says she’s lonesome—but I know just the same. It’s Uncle Jim she wants, though, more than Platteville.”
Mr. Cleaver laid his fur glove on the shoulder of Dick’s canvas coat. “I can’t understand why two nice people like Mrs. Cleaver and me couldn’t have had four nice kids like you,” he said.
In the house Mrs. Cleaver was helping Joan set the table, while Becky thickened the cream sau
ce for the gravy. “Put on the tablecloth with the monogram,” ordered Becky. “Get the Swope plate for the bread, open the jar of spiced cherries from home, and throw the nicked cup into the ash can. Let us dine as befitting our station in life—school-teacher for another year, and almost-owners of a claim! I wish I didn’t have to open another can. When we have proved up, and get our homestead receipts I shall never eat another canned pea.”
“Peas aren’t so bad as turnips,” observed Joan.
“Well, perhaps I won’t renounce the pea until I know how the crops turn out, next year. But oh, Mrs. Cleaver, I’ve eaten my way through a billion tin cans this year. I have real admiration for the grit and persistence of the goat.”
Mrs. Cleaver laughed, but there was a note of sympathy in her voice.
“I felt just that way, too, when I first came to Dakota. But things won’t be so unappetizing after you get your own garden. Shall I mash the potatoes now?”
“Rap on the window for the men, Joan,” said Becky. “We’ll be ready by the time Dick washes his hands.”
“Dick’s not a man,” said the little girl.
“He seems that way to me,” said Becky. “Knock hard, so they’ll hear you.”
Joan stepped to the window. “Who’s that driving by?” she asked. “Look at the load of goods. Someone’s freighting on Sunday. Why, Becky, it’s the Welps!”
Mrs. Cleaver and the three children looked out of the window between the sash curtains. Two thin horses were pulling the Welp wagon over the trail. It was loaded with shabby household goods. Mr. Welp and his two boys sat on the front seat; in the wagon box were Mrs. Welp and the two other children. The little girls looked wistfully at the house as they passed. Mrs. Welp kept her eyes fastened on the chair she was steadying, the boys looked straight ahead, and Mr. Welp aimed a blow at Bronx as they passed.
“I’d like to aim a turnip at him!” said Joan.
The horses strained under the load, the wagon jolted over the ruts in the frozen trail, and across the gray prairie the Welps passed out of the sight and the life of the Linvilles.
“Good-by to nothing,” remarked Phil, as the wagon melted into the trail.
“I’m sorry for that poor woman,” said Becky. “We’re rid of him, but she’s got him for life.”
“It’s her own fault,” said Joan. “You got to stop and think before you pick out a husband.”
Dinner, and dishes, and a gay afternoon with the Cleavers.
“It’s just like Platteville when you come,” said Joan. “Wish you could stay here. Then it would seem like home.”
“Seems like home to us,” said Mr. Cleaver. “Every time we get lonesome for kids we’re coming out here. Look out for us every ten days or so.”
When the guests were ready to go they called Becky’s attention to a basket that they were leaving behind. “Can’t you come without bearing gifts?” asked Becky.
“It’s nothing but junk,” was Mrs. Cleaver’s comment.
“Don’t miss the photograph in the white envelope,” said Mr. Cleaver. “I found it going through my old films last week; I’d forgotten that I ever took it.”
“Who is it?” inquired Becky curiously. “Hope it’s Mrs. Cleaver.”
“You’ll see,” said her guest. “Come on out, you young fry, and open the gate for us.”
* * * *
The sun was low in the sky when their visitors drove away, and Becky ceased to wave from the window. The children had stayed in the barn to gather the eggs, and Dick was milking Red Haw. That would give her a chance to open the basket before the family came in. She carried it to the window to get the light of the sun. It was sinking fast now, the clouds were white islands in a sea of fire.
Becky opened the hamper. A layer of oranges and apples, each one wrapped to prevent freezing; some “ready-to-sew” dresses for Joan; a puzzle game; a pile of magazines; two late novels, and a box of real Omaha chocolates. And down in the bottom the white envelope. Becky took out the kodak picture and held it close up to the window.
It was Uncle Jim; not the Uncle Jim of Platteville, but the Uncle Jim of the prairies. He was standing near the creek-bed, against a background of leafless wild plum branches. His flannel shirt was open at the throat, and the wind was blowing his hair. There were smile wrinkles around his eyes, but he was not smiling. He was looking away across the sea of grass with an expression on his face that was intense, tender, and almost rapt. It was as though someone he loved had called to him, and he had lifted his head to reply.
Tears shut away the picture, but they were not tears of bitterness. For as Becky looked, she knew that the prairie was Uncle Jim’s home. He, too, had heard its call to stay, and she knew from his face what his answer would be.
SPICE AND THE DEVIL’S CAVE, by Agnes Danforth Hewes
A Newbery Honor Book, 1931.
INTRODUCTION
Nothing has ever given me quite so much pleasure as the request that I write an Introduction to Agnes Danforth Hewes’ Spice and the Devil’s Cave. In the first place I am a firm believer in the value of historical fiction and I now have an opportunity to go on record to that effect. In the second place, I have witnessed Mrs. Hewes’ struggle against heavy odds which has already produced A Boy of the Lost Crusade and Swords on the Sea. So I am glad to have the first chance to say what a splendid piece of work she has done in Spice and the Devil’s Cave.
And what a story it is! How pervaded with that atmosphere of the East in which the author herself was cradled and nurtured! Again, as in Swords on the Sea, we are fascinated by a swiftly moving story of deadly rivalry over trade and trade routes. This time Venice, instead of winning the fight for supremacy on the Mediterranean from Genoa, loses to Portugal the contest to dominate the all-sea route to the spices of India and the Far East.
Mrs. Hewes has that wizard’s touch which makes the past live but she also has the scholar’s patience which enables her to make an imaginative reconstruction that is convincing and lives in the memory. In addition she brings out phases of the story that ordinarily do not receive proper emphasis.
By making Abel Zakuto and his workshop at Lisbon the central point in the little knot of enthusiasts bent on proving the existence of an all-sea route from the Cape to India there is effectively brought out the significant part played by the Jews in furthering the work of discovery. To Zakuto, banker by calling and maker of navigation instruments and maps in his leisure, comes for comfort and encouragement the great Bartholomew Diaz, fretting his heart out because the king will not push the explorations. Vasco da Gama comes too, and the young Magellan with his burning eyes. All get comfort and inspiration from Zakuto.
But perhaps the most novel part of the tale is the emphasis laid on Portugal’s attempts to work overland down the East Coast of Africa for the supposed connection with the Cape of Good Hope, somewhat beyond which Diaz had set up the furthermost of Portugal’s White Pillars. The heroic Covilham gave his life to this effort. There are few tenser moments in any work of fiction than the scene in Zakuto’s workshop where, by the uncomprehending lips of the mysterious Nejmi, Covilham’s success and her own father’s voyage to the White Pillars is revealed to the breathless and astounded listeners. Upon them then breaks the great realization that the darkness hitherto enshrouding the unknown strip of coast between Sofala and the last White Pillars has been dispelled; that now the existence of an all-sea route to India is established.
Very striking also is the story of Venice’s frantic efforts to block Portugal from reaping the reward of her efforts. Getting from scouts on the East Coast advance information that Vasco da Gama’s ships are returning, the Venetians stir up pirates to block his return to Lisbon. Furthermore, anticipating De Lesseps, Venice conceives the design of cutting through the Isthmus of Suez, in order to maintain her hold on the Spice Trade. But her failure in both schemes spells her doom.
Portugal is triumphant—but what will come? One is eager to know; to follow the thesis of Mrs. Hewes that maritime trade
inspiring youth has played an undreamed-of role in world civilization. The shores of India, of China, and of America beckon the successors of young Magellan in these last pages. Older readers become one with Mrs. Hewes’ juvenile audiences in their eagerness for more.
Curtis Howe Walker
Vanderbilt University
CHAPTER 1
Out of the Night
The group in Abel Zakuto’s workshop hitched chairs closer to the table spread with a huge map, eyes intent on Captain Diaz’ brown forefinger, as it traced along the bulge of Africa’s west coast.
“Cape Verde, Guinea—all that’s an old story to Portugal now; and this…and this…as anyone can see by our stone pillars all along the way. Then”—the brown forefinger that had slid rapidly southward stopped short—“then, the big Cape.… And the last of our pillars!” he added under his breath.
The circle of eager eyes lifted to the tanned face with something very like reverence, for not one around the table but knew that, if Bartholomew Diaz had had his way, the stone pillars would never have stopped at the Cape.
Into the mind of young Ferdinand Magellan, hunched up over the table, flashed a memory of the first time he had heard of Bartholomew Diaz. Up to the family home, in high, lonely Sabrosa,1 had come the story of this man who had marked the farthest bound in the search for the sea route to India, which he had named the Cape of Storms. Ferdinand quickened to the picture that the story had called up to his childish fancy: the man gazing from his fragile, tossing ship at the awesome rock, while the great Cape, waiting through the ages, bared its storm-swept head to hail this first white face.
He suddenly leaned over the map and closely inspected it. Then he looked up at Abel Zakuto. “What does this name mean?”
Abel glanced where he pointed. “Why, that’s really the big Cape. But Fra Mauro2 showed it as an island which he called Diab—probably from the legends of the Arab sailors that the surrounding sea was the Devil’s Cave. You know King John liked to call it The Cape of Good Hope.”
The Young Adult Award-Winners Megapack Page 75
