American Struggle

by Veda Boyd Jones

  He rummaged around until he located the bricks under the covers, disturbing his father as little as he could. Emma helped carry them to the fireplace and back to the wagon when they were hot.

  “I could stay out here,” Anthony said. “This feels good.”

  “It won’t feel good tonight when there’s a frost,” his wife reminded him.

  By the time they moved Rob’s father into the smokehouse, it had been transformed into a bedroom. Emma recognized a table from the parlor, as well as the bed Patricia and Sue Ellen had been sleeping in. Two chairs from the front room were in there, too, and the place still had a smell from the lye soap Mama had used to clean it with. A fire burned brightly in the crude fireplace that was used to smoke meat.

  Mama fixed a schedule so that someone was nursing Anthony at every minute, night and day. Soon everything had calmed down, and Miss Clara was taking her turn with Rob’s father.

  “I’m going down to the creek,” Emma said, her hand on the kitchen doorknob that afternoon when they had finished eating the noon meal. “You coming, Rob?” She gave him a pointed stare, and he got up from his chair to fetch his coat.

  “I sent Timothy down this morning to look after your animals,” Mama said, “if that’s why you’re in such a hurry.”

  Emma gasped. “You know about my animals?”

  Papa chuckled. “Do you think something can happen on my land that I wouldn’t know about?”

  “We were hoping you’d tell us what you were doing,” Mama said.

  “I didn’t think you’d understand,” Emma said.

  “Understand what?” Mama moved around the kitchen table and put her hand on Emma’s shoulder.

  “That I like taking care of animals. I want to be an animal doctor.” Emma looked down at the floor. “Ever heard of a girl wanting to do that?”

  “I’ll admit it’s not common,” Mama said. “But it’s also uncommon for a girl to play a harmonica, and I wanted to do that, so I did. If you want to do something bad enough, you can find a way.”

  Emma hugged her mother. “I will find a way.”

  “Good,” Papa said. “I could use some help with the farm animals. Maybe you ought to start studying about cattle and horses and pigs instead of foxes that raid our chicken coop.”

  Emma laughed out loud, her heart filled with both joy and relief.

  “Maybe you should talk to Slim Watkins,” Papa said. “Folks call on him when they need help with sick animals.”

  Emma’s smile was a mile wide. “I’ll do that.”

  Rob shrugged into his coat and joined Emma at the door.

  “Can you imagine?” Emma said once they were outside. “They want me to be an animal doctor.”

  “Since you like the country so much, taking care of farm animals seems like the thing you ought to do,” Rob said.

  “And since you like the city so much, taking care of sick people at a hospital is what you should do,” Emma said.

  The two cousins grinned at each other.

  They ran down to the creek and measured the water, and Rob jotted down their other observations. The injured rabbit was munching on some hay that Timothy had given it.

  When they returned to the house, Patricia was taking her turn with Anthony, and Miss Clara sat at the kitchen table.

  “How’s Father?” Rob asked. His turn to nurse him was next. “He’s going to be fine,” Miss Clara said. “He doesn’t look at all like Ruthann did. He’s getting pink color in his face. He’s going to be fine.”

  Emma said a silent thank you to God. She’d been doing that on and off all day, but she couldn’t say it enough to express the relief she felt.

  Miss Clara’s prediction was right. A week later, Rob’s father insisted he be allowed up and around. Each day he grew stronger, and within a month he proclaimed himself to be better than before his bout with cholera.

  Papa started going back into Cincinnati on market days. As winter moved in, the cholera lessened its hold on the town. Six weeks later, in mid-December, Miss Clara, Rob, Sue Ellen, and their mother and father packed their belongings on the wagon.

  “Kristen, Thomas, I can’t thank you enough for letting my family rely on you,” Anthony said.

  “Oh, Anthony, you’d have done the same for us,” Mama said. Rob stood to the side with Emma. “I’ll miss the creek and the animals.”

  “Then come back sometime,” she said. “Once I start going to school again, I’ll see you every day. But for now, I’ll be in town on Saturday, market day. We’ll go talk to Dr. Drake.” “See you then.” Rob climbed up on the wagon bed. His father hollered “Giddap!” to the horses, and the family headed back to Cincinnati and their home.

  With a sigh, Emma turned to go inside. She was going to miss spending so much time with Rob … but God had worked all things together for good, just as Mama had said He would.

  Emma thought about her dreams for the future. She was glad to know that Mama and Papa supported her, but she still didn’t know if she would ever get to be an animal doctor. I guess I’ll just have to wait to see how God works things out.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Roundup

  Tennessee 1838

  They’re here!” Nellie Starr whispered. She peeked around the curtain of her upstairs bedroom window at the soldiers. She counted five men, all on horseback, riding purposefully up the lane toward the house. “They’ve come for us.”

  “Will they hurt us?” Sarah asked.

  “Yes. No! They won’t hurt us physically,” Nellie assured her five-year-old sister. “But they will change everything. Everything! Hurry. Keep packing.”

  “Can I take my doll?”

  “Yes, but hurry. Put those clothes in here.” She motioned to the black horsehair trunk where she had placed her day dresses and her Sunday dress of blue muslin. She added her papers and pen. She couldn’t endure the long trip without writing. And she’d write in Cherokee language, using Sequoyah’s syllabary, not English, so the soldiers wouldn’t know what she was writing.

  A loud knock, more like pounding, sounded a moment before the front door was opened with great force. The door swung so wide it hit the wall beside it with a big bang.

  “Nellie!” Etsi, her mother, yelled. Nellie fairly flew down the stairs to the front room. Etsi faced three soldiers. Two stood on the porch.

  “It’s time to go,” one soldier said. “Where’s your man to hitch up the wagon?”

  Etsi looked at Nellie.

  “He wants to know where Edoda is.” Nellie translated the soldier’s words into her native Cherokee language. Her mother understood some English, but Etsi’s command of the language didn’t match Nellie’s. Nellie had studied hard at the mission school and spoke the best English of all the students, even better than those older than her twelve years. Her teacher said she had a gift for language, and Nellie cherished the gift that let her speak easily with the missionaries.

  “Father’s in the smokehouse,” Nellie told the soldiers. “I’ll go get him.”

  “Mason!” a soldier yelled to a man on the porch. “Get the man in the smokehouse!” He turned back to Nellie. “Let’s get going.” “But we’re not yet packed.”

  “You’re as packed as you’re going to be,” another soldier said.

  Nellie ignored the man’s words and addressed the soldier who had spoken first. More brass on his uniform told her he was in charge.

  “Please give us the rest of the day to get ready.”

  He shook his head, and the second soldier laughed. “As if they haven’t had all the time in the world already, Lieutenant Seward.”

  “One hour,” Lieutenant Seward said.

  “One hour,” Nellie translated to Etsi.

  “That’s not long enough,” Nellie said.

  “You’ve had two years, a month, some days, and now one hour,” the lieutenant said.

  That was true, but it wasn’t true. The false treaty signed by only a few Cherokee—not the rightful leaders—gave them two years to move
to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. But during those two years, thousands of Cherokee had signed a petition to Congress, saying the treaty to sell their lands to the white men was not a real treaty. The Cherokee had hoped that they would not be forced off the land of their forefathers. Now, there was no more hope.

  One hour to pack up a lifetime of memories. Nellie glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantel in the front room. Just after nine o’clock. Before noon, they would be on their way to a new land.

  Nellie heard a whimper and saw Sarah on the stair landing, her face crumpled, tears of fear dripping from her chin onto her dress.

  “It will be fine, Sarah. Go pack.” Sarah climbed the few steps to the top. “Hurry,” Nellie said.

  “We must pack more dishes,” Etsi said and turned, her sweeping skirts making a swishing sound as she walked away.

  Nellie told the soldiers they were going to the kitchen, and the men followed them to the back of the house.

  The kitchen was already stifling in the unseasonably hot June morning. Spring had come early to the hills, and crops had been put in early without any bud getting nipped by a late frost. Summer had come just as early, and the heat of the house was nearly unbearable. Nellie wiped sweat from her forehead with her hand.

  Etsi had been putting dishes in a wooden box. She continued packing, wrapping dishes in old newspapers they had saved because they were in the Cherokee language. That way they would have reading material in the new land.

  The soldiers sat in ladder-back chairs around the oblong wooden table. Earlier, Nellie had drawn water in the well bucket, and now she poured glasses of cool water for the men. She hoped her hospitality would gain them more time.

  One of the men who worked at Edoda’s general store had stormed from town not long after breakfast. He had shouted from his horse that the soldiers were rounding up Cherokee, and then he had galloped to his home.

  They had immediately set to work. Edoda had run to the field to drive the oxen toward the barn where their wagon sat in readiness for such a sad day as this. Then he ran to the smokehouse to gather food.

  From the kitchen window, Nellie saw a soldier point his rifle at Edoda as he followed Edoda out of the toolshed. They headed toward the barn.

  “Candle molds. We’ll need those,” Etsi said. “And let’s throw in the candles already made. And the butter churn, but it won’t fit in the box. And those pots.”

  Nellie went around the room, handing items to Etsi, who shifted things to make room in the box for more. The cast-iron pots were too heavy to pack in a box, and Nellie carried them to the front porch, then returned.

  “What about the stove?” Nellie stood by the cast-iron cookstove. How could they load the boxes and trunks and still have room for the stove? And how would they cook if they didn’t have it?

  “I don’t know. We’ll ask Edoda when he comes in.” Etsi put a bag of healing herbs in the brown wooden box and then walked to the front room.

  Nellie scurried after her. A quick glance told her there was no way they could load the furniture on the wagon. Too much, too big. They’d need five wagons to fit everything, and that wouldn’t do it, either. They could take only the wooden crate Edoda had carried in before the soldiers came. Now to decide what to pack in the crate.

  Tick-tock, tick-tock. She reached for the mantel clock. It quit ticking when she tilted it, the pendulum stopping its measured swing.

  The clock needed winding every eight days. If only she could stop time like she had stopped this clock. If only she could turn back time to the last day Edoda had wound the clock. Then there would be no Cherokee removal demanded by the United States government.

  But she couldn’t stop time. And now she didn’t know how much of the hour was left for packing. She carefully took the weight out of the back of the clock and wrapped it in her handkerchief. She put the clock and the separate weight in the packing crate.

  Etsi stood by the stuffed chair where Edoda liked to sit in the evenings. She ran her fingers lovingly across the back and looked at the room slowly, her gaze moving inch by inch as if memorizing every chair and stool and table and picture.

  “Etsi, we have to hurry. Hurry.”

  “We should take the sampler you embroidered,” she said and slowly took the framed fabric off the wall and placed it in the crate. “Is your room finished?”

  “I’ll check on Sarah’s stuff. What about Lewis’s room?”

  “Lewis!” Etsi exclaimed and put her hand to her mouth, covering a moan.

  He had left for Old Rivers’s house before the warning had come. He’d gone to take the old man an herbal potion that Etsi had mixed for his cold.

  “He’ll be back any minute. He’s been gone long enough.” But that was if he didn’t dawdle along the way with the other boys in the area if they happened to be down by the creek, which would surely be the way he came home. And there were always other boys around Lewis.

  Tears pooled in Etsi’s eyes, and Nellie hugged her, then said, “I’ll pack his clothes.”

  She passed a soldier, who had come into the front room to investigate the packing, and climbed the stairs two at a time. She found Sarah in the bedroom they shared, crying in a corner.

  “We don’t have time for that,” Nellie said. She held her little sister for a long moment. “I need your help packing Lewis’s clothes.”

  Sarah sniffed and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands but followed Nellie to Lewis’s room across the hall. “Where’s Lewis?”

  “He’ll be back. We’ll use the satchel for his things.”

  They tossed shirts and trousers into the bag. “There’s no room for his coat. He’ll have to get a new one when we get to the territory.” The thought of replacing the old things gave Nellie new courage. “Hurry.”

  She heard the rumble of the oxen and the creaking of the white canvas-covered wagon and looked out Lewis’s window at Edoda driving the team out of the barn toward the house. The wagon had been packed with things they weren’t using day to day but would need later. Now they’d have to load the boxes and trunks they had packed this morning.

  “We can carry our trunk down,” Nellie said. But it was heavier than she’d imagined. Sarah struggled to carry one end, so they scooted more than carried the trunk to the stairs, where it thumped down to the first floor. They pushed it out the door and left it on the porch. Nellie ran back upstairs to get Lewis’s satchel.

  What about the bedding? Where would they sleep? They didn’t need covers now with the June sun heating the earth, but what about next winter in their new home? Nellie gazed at Lewis’s bed and pulled off the blanket. Hadn’t the teachers at the mission said that the government would give them blankets and food for the trip and supplies when they reached the new land?

  But it would be good to have their own blankets, and they could easily be thrown over the boxes in the wagon. They wouldn’t take up much extra room. She grabbed Lewis’s coat, too.

  She took the blankets from the other beds. In her room, she grabbed the blanket but paused a brief moment to look out the window.

  Memorize the trees, memorize the lane, memorize the robin that built a nest outside your window, her heart told her. You will never see them again. Her head told her to carry the blankets to the porch. She ran downstairs, arms full, and piled the blankets outside on the trunk, then found Etsi and Sarah in the parlor, doing nothing, just standing there, holding each other. Nothing more was in the crate. A soldier sat in Edoda’s chair.

  “Etsi, are your clothes ready to go?” Nellie asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Let’s get them packed.” She took her etsi’s arm and led her to the stairs.

  “Nellie,” Edoda called from the kitchen.

  Nellie gave Etsi a nudge to urge her up the stairs. “Help her, Sarah,” she said and scurried to the kitchen.

  “Could you help me with these heavy boxes?” Edoda asked, an urgency in his voice.

  Two soldiers still sat at
the kitchen table, but neither offered to help. Their expressions showed impatience, and Nellie sensed that if her family didn’t get their things loaded soon, they would be forced to leave boxes behind.

  “We don’t carry,” one of the soldiers said. “Orders.” As if that explained not helping a girl and her edoda pack a wagon.

  The solid wooden box of dishes and silverware and other kitchen things was heavy. Even with Edoda’s strength, it took both of them to wield it out the door. The height of the back porch was nearly the same as the wagon, so they had to lift the box only a few inches, which was a good thing. Nellie didn’t know how they could have lifted it any higher.

  One soldier stood at the head of the matched set of reddish-colored oxen, holding them still. Lieutenant Seward walked out on the porch, his boots making a heavy clunking noise.

  “Mason, you and Willis go to the next farm and get them moving. We can’t take all day getting this section to the camp.”

  The soldier holding the oxen left with another man, and Nellie climbed onto the wagon to hold the reins. Edoda loaded another box on his own and moved some tools around to find a small place for the churn.

  “There’s a trunk out front,” Nellie said. “And pots.”

  “First I want a few more tools,” Edoda said. He ran to the toolshed, his black hat with the crow feather bobbing up and down with every fast step. He returned carrying a hoe and a hatchet.

  “No hatchet,” Lieutenant Seward said and pointed at the porch. “No weapons allowed.”

  Nellie translated for her father so there was no misunderstanding, although he knew a fair amount of English and probably understood just fine. If he couldn’t take the ax, he surely couldn’t take his gun to hunt game, and she didn’t want a confrontation about it.

  “How do we clear land for a new house without tools?” Edoda asked softly in Cherokee, so softly he may not have intended the soldier to hear, but Nellie repeated his question in English.

  “There will be supplies in Indian Territory. You don’t have to take everything. The government will pay you for what’s left.”

  Edoda took a couple steps toward the shed.