“What do you think of this for an adventure?” Pa asked.
I wanted to tell him it was scary, that I was afraid one of the oxen would bump up against me and push me into the river. The water was so dirty, no one would ever see me if I went under. But I didn’t want to admit I was afraid, so I asked, “Does Colorado have big rivers like this?”
“Only the Platte, but it isn’t much of a river, a mile wide but only an inch deep, they say,” Pa told me.
“Then I wouldn’t mind falling into it,” I told him.
“Hold on to the wagon wheel. It’s chained to the ferry. Don’t you worry, Emmy Blue. These river rats know what they’re doing,” he told me, and pointed with his chin to the two men in charge of the raft.
I turned and watched the Missouri side of the river come closer and closer, until finally we bumped against the shore. Pa and Uncle Will led the oxen off the ferry, and before I knew it, we were looking for a campsite.
“Ho for Colorado!” Pa said. I didn’t respond this time. Like Aunt Catherine, I was beginning to get tired of hearing that.
Pa said we were making good time through Missouri, going twelve or fifteen miles a day. Horses would have gone faster, but oxen were better suited for the Great Plains, even if they were slow and too stupid to swat flies with their tails. Another advantage, Pa said, was that while the Indians might shoot oxen, they wouldn’t steal them because they had no use for them. Even Aunt Catherine laughed at the idea of an Indian man on an ox, riding across the prairie.
“Wouldn’t they eat them?” I asked.
“They’d have to be awfully hungry,” Pa replied.
Aunt Catherine perked up after we crossed the Mississippi. Every day she was happier and more helpful, and she even made jokes, asking, “If we just crossed Mrs. Sippi, where do you suppose Mr. Sippi has got to?”
Uncle Will slapped his knee and laughed. The joke wasn’t all that funny. I think he was just glad that Aunt Catherine was back to her old self.
Aunt Catherine began doing some of the cooking, telling Ma, “Now, Meggie, you know you shouldn’t overdo it. Save your strength. You’ll need it.”
“What’s wrong with you, Ma?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m fine, Emmy Blue. Don’t you worry about me.”
Pa said to enjoy the trip while we could, because it would get harder once we were through Missouri and across the Missouri River. “These are easy days,” he said, and they were. The road was smooth, with farms along the way. Sometimes we stopped at barnyard wells to water the stock, and the farm wives invited us to rest a spell.
The farmers gathered around the wagons and asked Pa and Uncle Will where they were going. “You been to Colorado before? You find a mine, did you?” one asked.
“Why, I’d give you this whole farm for just one bucket of Pike’s Peak nuggets,” another farmer said.
At a farm where several children played, a girl about my age asked me, “You like going west?”
“It’s better than threading needles for Ma’s quilting group,” I told her.
The girl giggled. “I don’t care for that, either. What’s it like riding in a covered wagon?”
“I walk with Pa most of the time,” I said, feeling grown up. “Who wants to sit on a seat as hard as a milking stool all day?”
“I guess you like it right well.”
“I guess I do.”
Ma and Aunt Catherine talked with the women. “Why’d you agree to uproot and go to Colorado?” one asked them.
Ma replied, “We thought we’d have a better living out there.”
But another woman said, “Laws, how I’d like to go along. Sometimes I think if I have to gather one more egg, I’ll throw it to the cats and take off walking. Imagine the chance to look in a gold pan and find a thousand dollars.”
“You’d give up your home?” Aunt Catherine asked.
“Faster than you could say, ‘Pickled peppers.’”
After we were on our way again, Aunt Catherine asked Ma, “Do you think that woman would run off?”
Ma laughed, but then she turned and looked back in the direction of the farm. “Maybe not this afternoon, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we spotted her in Golden one day.”
Chapter Seven
OUR ADVENTURE IN ST. JOE
The weather was good in Missouri, warm but not hot enough to make us uncomfortable in all our clothes. Even though there was a tiny bit of room in the wagon, now that we had eaten some of the food given to us by our neighbors and friends. Ma still insisted we wear all our clothes. I heard her tell Aunt Catherine she was afraid Pa would make her throw out the extra dresses if she asked to store them in the Conestoga. “We’ll wait. I promised I’d wear all the dresses,” she said.
“I think Thomas would find room now if you asked him.”
“Well, I won’t,” Ma said. “I believe he and Will must have laughed at us wearing all these clothes, thinking we’d beg for a place to store them. Well, we’ll show them.”
“We?” Aunt Catherine asked, and laughed. “Thomas is not the only one who is stubborn.”
So far we didn’t have worries from Indians, we were able to find water, and we didn’t run into any rattlesnakes, as Pa thought we would, and it seemed like we flew as fast as birds across the state. It wasn’t even a month—it was April now—before we reached St. Joseph, or St. Joe. That’s where Pa said we would get the plans for the business block. He had written to a friend who was set up in St. Joe as a builder and had promised to draw them up. We would hook up with a wagon train there, too.
“We’ve done all right on our own. Why do we need to join a train with all that dust and animals milling around and not a moment of privacy?” Aunt Catherine asked.
“It’s dangerous to cross alone. There are Indians, and what if one of us fell under the wagon or got snake bit? Neither Will nor I know about doctoring. And if the wagon breaks down, there’ll be someone to help us. Besides, Meggie ought to have other women with her,” Pa explained.
We had found a place along the east side of the Missouri River to camp. It was filled with wagons and tents, and Pa went in search of a wagon train to join. He came back an hour later and told us, “Good news! There is a train leaving in two days for Denver City, which is the big town close to Golden. We are welcome to join it. All we have to do is get ourselves across the river.” I was too big to be picked up, but Pa did just that. “Emmy Blue, there are children in that train, so you won’t have to spend your time with us old people.”
We had passed through the streets of St. Joe on our way to the camp, and I was anxious to explore the town. I’d seen men in buckskin pants embroidered with beads and a family of Indians sitting in the dirt, begging for “beeskit.”
“Look, Indians,” I’d cried.
Pa shook his head. “The coming of the white man has not been a good thing for those poor folks. You’ll see grand Indians out on the plains, Emmy Blue, the finest specimen of men, whose skill with horses beats any I ever saw. But these Indians”—he nodded at the family—“are no more than dirty beggars, as bad as any white bum you ever saw at home. The men—and the women, too—are addicted to whiskey.”
“You mean they’re like Betsy Pride’s father?” Betsy was a girl who lived in a shack with her father on a rundown farm not far from where we had lived. Her mother was dead, her brother had run off, and she lived alone with her father, who was a drunkard. Sometimes Ma hired Betsy to help with the cleaning and the cooking. Ma treated her kindly. She gave her a dress she said she was tired of, combed her hair to get out the twigs and burs, and insisted she spend the night when she worked late. I thought she was the sorriest girl I ever met and asked Ma what I could do.
“Be a friend to her,” Ma had said.
And so whenever I met her on the street, I was friendly. Once when Abigail and I took a picnic into the woods, I invited Betsy to go with us, although she was almost a grown-up. She taught me how to shoot marbles and whittle with a knife.
“Yes,
these Indians are no better than Betsy Pride’s father,” Pa told me. “He was a worthless old thing.”
“Who?” Ma asked, coming up to us.
“We were talking about Hal Pride.”
Ma shook her head. “Poor Betsy. She never had a chance.”
“Will and I are going into town,” Pa said, changing the subject. “St. Joe is no place for a lady. Besides, somebody has to stay and guard the wagons. Who knows what could be stolen.”
I was disappointed, because I wanted to see St. Joe. I didn’t care that it was rough or that bad people lived there. But I knew better than to beg Pa to go.
“I’ll stay,” Ma said, and I knew that was the end of it.
As Ma and I watched the men go off, Aunt Catherine came up to us. “They’re going without us?” she asked.
“I promised to watch the wagons. Besides, Thomas says St. Joe is no place for a lady.”
Aunt Catherine put her hands on her hips. “I didn’t promise any such thing. And if your husband believes it is all right for a lady to face drought and wind and Indians and wild animals, I see no reason why we should be protected against whatever dangers St. Joe has. After these dull days, I would welcome a bit of excitement. Come along, Emmy Blue. I am in need of a spool of thread, which I daresay your Uncle Will would approve of because he has torn his shirt and I have nothing to stitch it up with. You and I can see the sights on the way to the store.”
I stared at her, my mouth open. Then I turned to Ma, who would surely say no. But instead, Ma smiled at me. “I promised I would stay. I didn’t say anything about you. It may be your last look at civilization, such as it is. But try to come back ahead of the men.”
So Aunt Catherine took my hand, and we walked toward the center of St. Joe, making sure we kept well behind Pa and Uncle Will.
St. Joe wasn’t that much different from Quincy, the town near our farm that we’d visit two or three times a year. In fact, it wasn’t even as nice. There were new brick buildings and a big hotel on streets that were dusty and rutted from the wagons passing through. Houses were being built of brick and stone. The town was crowded with people dressed in all sorts of clothing—overalls, suits, fur, and buckskin embroidered with beads and pieces of calico. There were ladies in lace and satin and men in flowered vests under what Aunt Catherine called frock coats. As I stopped to take everything in, a delivery wagon shot past us, churning mud. I jumped back as the driver yelled, “Watch it, girlie.”
We passed outfitting stores with tents, frying pans, rope, and wagon wheels. There were big shallow pans that Aunt Catherine said the prospectors used to wash gold out of the streams and there were picks for breaking rock. I saw heavy work pants and felt hats, rows of canned tomatoes and oysters and sardines. Sombreros and paper collars were piled on counters next to stacks of ammunition. And everywhere—on the counters, in windows, piled on top of bins of spices—were guidebooks to the Pike’s Peak country.
After visiting several places, we found a dry goods store and went inside, where Aunt Catherine fussed over the ribbons, selecting one that was a lavender plaid. “I’ll keep this in my pocket and take it out when no one is looking so that I’ll know I’m still a lady,” she said. “Now, Emmy Blue, pick out a ribbon for your braids.”
“Truly?” I asked. I had not brought hair ribbons with me.
“Of course. I have a little money of my own, and I expect to spend it frivolously. Who knows when I’ll ever have a chance to be carefree again? Choose a ribbon for Waxy, too.”
I went through the ribbons carefully, narrowing my choice to a yellow that was the color of the morning sun and a blue the color of the late afternoon sky. “Blue. It won’t show the dirt,” Aunt Catherine said when I asked her opinion. “But I believe Waxy would like the yellow.”
A clerk cut the ribbons for us, and Aunt Catherine added a packet of pins and a piece of red calico for Ma.
“What about the thread?” I asked as we left the store.
“Thread?” She looked confused. “I have plenty of thread. We don’t need any more thread.”
“But you said you needed some.”
“Oh, I did, didn’t I?” She smiled at me. “I guess your ma won’t mind that little fib. Bother about thread! Now, let’s go sit down in real chairs and have real tea,” she said, looking approvingly at the Patee House, a fine brick hotel across the street. “Surely they have a ladies ordinary.”
“A what?” I asked.
“It’s a tea room reserved for women, a place where we can sit and relax. There is one at the Quincy House at home.” She took my hand and led me across the street, through the lobby of the hotel into a room that was fitted with fragile chairs and tables. I felt out of place, because I still wore three dresses, but Aunt Catherine moved like a queen past the ladies in their fashionable frocks and bonnets. When I glanced around, I saw other women dressed in traveling clothes.
Aunt Catherine ordered tea and tiny cakes, and I perched on my chair trying to act ladylike and not put the entire cake into my mouth at one time.
“Going west are you?” asked a lady at the table next to us.
“We are,” Aunt Catherine replied. “And you?”
The woman nodded. “This is my wedding trip. I don’t suppose I’ll find tea and pastries in Denver.”
“We are going to Golden. We leave in two days,” Aunt Catherine told her.
“Why, maybe we’ll be on the same train.” The woman wiped her fingers on her napkin. Her hands were already brown and rough. “I am Lucy Bonner.”
Aunt Catherine told her our names, and the two of them chatted, but not for long. We had to return to the wagon before Pa and Uncle Will got back. So we took our leave. Aunt Catherine ordered three little cakes to take with us and put them into her bag.
Ma smiled when she saw the cakes, and the three of us sat on the wagon tongue, and we took tiny bites to make them last longer. We ate every crumb.
“Do you think we should have gotten cakes for Pa and Uncle Will?” I asked.
“No,” Ma and Aunt Catherine said together. Then the three of us began to laugh. I knew without their telling me that I should not mention our outing. That night, I told Waxy that I was learning something about how women keep secrets.
Chapter Eight
CROSSING THE MISSOURI
The Missouri wasn’t as wide as the Mississippi, but we still took a ferry to cross it. Pa said some people might let their oxen swim across, pulling the wagons, but he didn’t want to take a chance we’d overturn.
“Isn’t a ferry just as liable to tip over as a wagon?” Aunt Catherine asked.
“The ferries are stable,” Uncle Will told her. “Don’t you remember we took the ferry across the Mississippi?”
“I had my eyes closed the whole time,” she said.
“We’ll float across some of the smaller rivers later on,” Pa said. “That’s why we spread tar on the bottoms of the wagons before we left. They are tight as washbasins. We’ll be as dry as if we were on a steamboat.”
Early in the morning, we gathered with the other members of our wagon train. Ma nodded at some of the women, and Pa greeted one or two men he’d already met, but there wasn’t time to talk. We had to get across the Missouri, and Pa said that with all the wagons, the crossing could take the entire day. Our wagon master had already hired a guide, a man who was called Buttermilk John. He’d crossed the plains a dozen times before, and he would be our scout. He said he’d wake us up at dawn so we could get an early start. We’d stop at noon—nooning, he called it—then camp for the night when he found the right spot. Pa and the others would take turns being guards.
Buttermilk John looked like an Indian. He was dressed in a buckskin suit and moccasins, and his long hair was tied back with a strip of indigo calico. Pa said Buttermilk John’s looks didn’t matter. He was a good man who would get us through safely to Colorado Territory.
“Ye’ve got quite a load, old son,” Buttermilk John told Pa, when he inspected our wagon at the riv
er. “I hope you don’t sink the ferry.”
“Thomas knows best,” Mother said.
“He was just joking,” Pa told her.
Ma asked, “Where should Emmy Blue ride, beside the wagon or on the seat with us?”
“On the seat, high up, where she can see.”
The Missouri was filled with ferries taking across prairie schooners and men on horseback. There were also dugouts, canoes manned by Indians. We’d seen the Indians racing their horses back and forth along the river when we were camped. Now they seemed to want to cross with us, and they pushed their boats alongside the ferries.
These Indians weren’t like the family of beggars we’d seen in St. Joseph. They were shirtless or else wore faded calico tops and had feathers and bits of bright cloth woven into their hair. They hailed us, begging for “beeskit, tobac, ko-fee.” They offered to row some of our load to the far side, but Pa said he wasn’t about to transfer anything in the middle of the Missouri River.
Ma held so tightly to the wagon seat that her knuckles lost their color, and I remembered that she couldn’t swim. I worried that if the wagon tipped over, she’d be lost in the brown river, maybe kicked by the oxen, who were churning the muddy water. Then I remembered I couldn’t swim either, and I grabbed hold of the seat as I looked into the water that was swirling and foaming from all the traffic. The river was as busy as downtown Quincy on Saturdays.
The river current was strong, and our ferry drifted downstream. Pa said he wasn’t worried. He told us it mattered more that we got across the river than where we ended up. The ferry landed, and Pa jumped out of the wagon and gathered the oxen, which had swum across beside us. Then he went back to the river to look for Uncle Will, but he couldn’t see him. “We’ll go on to the gathering place. He’ll likely be there,” Pa said.
Pa helped Ma and me down from the wagon, and we shook our skirts because they had gotten wet. We started to walk, but even though we had hemmed our dresses above our boot tops, the fabric was wet and dragged in the dirt.
The Quilt Walk Page 4
