If she bore a son, she mused to herself, what a gift that would be to all of them in this vast place. A set of footsteps to follow Charles along any path he settled on, another pair of hands to share out the labor. And if it were a daughter, what then? Her mind flipped like a coin at that. It would be harder, without her brother Henry’s help, for Charles to manage a full quarter section alone, no matter how amenable the land.
Caroline blinked. She was thinking of this child as if it were a tool, an instrument to help them stake their claim. What of the child itself, the person it could become? Beyond the near certainty of blue eyes, she still could not make her mind form a picture of this baby, nor the life it might lead. Caroline felt her thoughts taking that peculiar shift backward as though she were trying to remember the child rather than imagine it. Back to the Big Woods and the familiar image of herself in her rocker before the fire, Black Susan purring at her feet.
None of it was right. This baby would be born not in winter, but on the coattails of summer. Not in the woods, but on the open plain. There would be no cat, no blazing winter hearth, no rocking chair. Caroline gazed out over the long clean grass, trying to picture instead the little house Charles had conjured before the campfire, with its blue and yellow calico curtains. How would it be inside that one room, with not two, but three little girls to bring up?
That was a different view altogether. All in one great swoop, the same vastness that held so much promise for Charles revealed to Caroline how small the places that could belong to her and the girls were by comparison. The square corners of the imagined house, the neatly turned edges of the garden, seemed sharper, narrower. Their little house in the Big Woods had rarely felt cramped, but now, without the great dark trees partitioning her view, Caroline understood just how insignificant it had been.
She turned backward to look at Mary and Laura, flushed and dozing on the straw tick. There was no place, yet, for her daughters to find room to expand in country like this—no churches, no schools, no community at all to speak of. Not even the narrow congregation of kin.
One day, if enough women came, the land would open itself to the cultivation of such places, to crops that fed more than the body. Until then, Mary’s and Laura’s minds would be confined to a vista no wider than their own sunbonnets. Both of them needed more. Caroline had only to look at them to know it. Mary was already too bright, and Laura too spirited to flourish without that promise. For their sake she could not root herself to a place without it.
Caroline said aloud, “The girls must have an education.”
“Hmm?” Charles said.
“The girls must have an education,” she said again.
He nodded without looking away from the horizon. “That’s so. Any time you judge them ready.”
“Mary is nearly ready now. I hate to make her wait.”
“Why wait?” And with a wink, “Seems to me you were a schoolteacher once.”
It was the wink that did it. Caroline saw no room for teasing in this; the breadth of their daughters’ learning could not ride on something so light as a wink. A wind rose up in her, strong enough to form a shout. For a moment Caroline could not think sensibly. It was all she could do to grip the rush of anger and rein it back. She would not let it go racing out at him. Her body went stock-still with the effort of speaking quietly. “Two terms, Charles. I taught just two terms and then I was married. That’s been better than ten years ago. Mary and Laura will have more capable instruction than that.”
She could hear the muscled quiver in her voice. It pulled Charles’s eyes from the scenery and his arm from her waist. She felt the hard set of her face as his eyes met hers, saw it bewilder him so rapidly that he nearly looked hurt. “I’ve never known you to be incapable of anything,” he said.
Caroline sat dumb. A compliment. Of course. He had no end of them—if not completely true then always sincere. Usually it was the sincerity that disarmed her.
Not this time. Yes, she could teach them all she knew, but her learning was a decade old. She would not let her own limits be imposed upon their daughters.
“Promise me, Charles,” she said. “No matter where we settle, Mary and Laura will have a formal education.”
He slowed the mustangs to study her. She watched the small muscles around his eyes contracting as he searched for something that would tell him what he had done to light such a flare between them. When he spoke the words were stripped bare. “Caroline, I swear to you—”
Caroline’s breath hissed back from the word. Even this was not worth making an oath of. “Please, Charles. Don’t swear it,” she said. “Only promise me.”
“I promise you. Our children will have proper schooling.” He broke her gaze only long enough to sweep his eyes quickly over her belly. “All of them.”
Caroline nodded. “All right,” she said, and her voice was her own again.
He moved to touch her and changed his mind, as though afraid she might singe him again. The last thrash of her anger went limp at that, and she felt too much at once. Grateful. Relieved. Repentant. And proud.
Charles gave the lines a little flick and the wagon sped up. Caroline waited for the wheels to carry them ahead, away from that spot, then crooked her hand into the crease of his elbow, squeezing softly to steady herself, to thank him, to apologize. He pulled it in against his side, forgiven.
Next day he was bright as ever. Caroline had sobered, troubled that she had so quickly managed to find limits in a limitless landscape. A pale scar from the hungry years, she thought ruefully, the same one that left her always mindful of the bottom of the flour barrel even when it was full to brimming. Never mind that she was plump enough now to dimple at the elbows. She still could not look at anything, it seemed, without gauging the needs it could satisfy and for how long. Not like Charles, who enjoyed everything the world laid before him right until the very moment it ran out. That alone was enough to tell her that his growing up had not been marred by want.
She had no desire to begrudge him his cheer, but it got to be a little like sunburn, sitting there beside him with no way to shade herself as he radiated happiness. Beautiful as it was, the view no longer fed her in the same way it fed him, and the more he feasted on it, the more keenly Caroline felt the lack.
What she felt was nonsensical, she scolded herself. Nothing had been taken from her. Nothing tangible would be denied her. Yet it pinched ever so slightly to watch Charles unfurling like a beanstalk beside her, knowing that Kansas offered her no similar satisfaction, no chance to reach beyond what she had been for the last ten years: Mrs. Ingalls, Ma. She could stretch forever toward that horizon and grasp nothing new.