Caroline: Little House, Revisited

As if it had grown out of her thoughts, a dull ache meandered across her right side and descended into her belly. Caroline followed it with the heel of her hand, but the narrow cord of pain was too deep to reach. The only part of her that could be counted on to expand in this place was her womb, she thought, and even that was half Charles’s doing.

Caroline moved to fold her hands together again and found her left had formed a fist in her lap. She had fairly balled herself up with envy. Envy, of all things, when everything they shared was bound to increase. And after she had vowed in the bunkhouse that first night to do all she could to keep her family worthy of Providence’s care. She wiped the damp palm across her skirt, uncrossed and recrossed her ankles. It helped some to break that selfish thought up and brush it away, but she did not know what to do with her hands, did not like the empty feel of them, or trust them not to clench up again. They needed something of their own to hold besides themselves, the way Charles had his reins and the girls their playthings. But what? She did not want to sit there with a wooden spoon or a skein of yarn in her lap. Her books and slate came first to mind, but they lay at the very bottom of her trunk, and anyway, she was not a teacher anymore and never would be again. Perhaps if she had never taught school, Caroline thought, never held an envelope filled with dollar bills she had earned herself, she would not feel so empty-handed now. Not even Mary or Laura would fill that space in the way she wanted.

Seeds. The little packets of seeds she had saved from the garden, and Polly’s, too. Those belonged to her in a way that nothing else inside the wagon did. Only she could not very well go digging through the crates to find them now. There was no call for it, no way to explain why she wanted them. The best she could do was fan out the handful of neatly labeled envelopes in her mind and imagine how the seeds folded safely inside would feel through the paper. There were the winkled round beads that were turnips, cabbages, and peas; the cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions with their sharp pointed ends; the flat squash seeds broad as fingernails; the tiny bearded carrot seeds. They had reached up out of the Wisconsin ground, and come spring she would work them into the Kansas soil so they could take root. Those lacy tendrils, finer than her finest crochet thread, would bore down through the dirt until they found something to grasp and hold themselves firm. Seeds always reached down before reaching up and out.

There was comfort in that.





Twelve




The willows along the Verdigris River traced a soft green line over the prairie. Their trunks were slender, and their young leaves not thick enough yet to provide much shade. Through the haze of yellow-green, Caroline could make out the tops of a few dozen haystacks on the opposite bank. They seemed to stand in crooked rows and squares.

“Must be the outskirts of Independence,” Charles said.

Town. Caroline’s heart began to patter.

Laura pulled herself up by the back of the spring seat. “Where, Pa?”

Like Laura, Caroline wanted to stand up in her seat to see this town, this place so fresh it had not earned itself a spot of ink on the map. Caroline had only half believed it would be here at all. She took hold of the outermost wagon bow and stretched her tired back out long and tall, tipping her chin toward the horizon. The smell of the river skimmed past her nostrils, a clean, silvery scent.

Somewhere just beyond the river were people, supplies, news. Perhaps, Caroline thought breathlessly before she could help herself, perhaps a letter. There had been waysides and whistle stops all along the road, but all that had mattered about them was how much they charged for feed, or how many miles’ travel they signified.

“This is the last town before the Indian Territory?” Caroline asked.

“So far as I can tell. Map’s no help for that anymore. I expect it’ll be the last town between us and the Territory, anyway,” Charles said.

She had known the answer before asking. Today or tomorrow they would drive past the rim of the nation. No matter how far beyond Charles drove, this town would belong to them, and they to it, and so Caroline was anxious to learn what kind of a place it was, what kind of people inhabited it. She gave the wagon bow another gentle pull, craning as far as she could toward those haystacks without betraying her impatience. This once, she would not mind strange faces looking at her. What would they see in her, she wondered, what would the people of Independence expect of a woman come to claim a quarter section with her husband? Perhaps she would surprise them. Perhaps she would surprise herself.

The Verdigris was high enough to lap at the underside of the wagon bed, but calm, and they forded the river easily. With a snort and a splash from Pet and Patty the wagon emerged from the screen of willows and the western bank came into view.

Had she been standing, Caroline would have sat right back down again. The haystacks were the town—little half-breed buildings, timber on the bottom, hay on top, no larger than sheds. Caroline felt the wagon bow slip through her hand as she sank into the shell of her corset. How could anyone properly call this place a town?

Charles pulled up before one of the hay shanties. A faded sign in front announced Bred and Pize for Saile huar. Caroline winced at the attempt. This place was not fresh, but raw.

Charles ducked through the low door and in a few minutes brought out a loaf wrapped in an old sheet of newsprint. “Here’s a treat for you, Caroline. Light bread.”

It felt a trifle heavy to go by the lofty name of light bread, but it was warm and smelled of yeast, so she unwrapped it and sliced it thickly.

“‘Immigration still continues to pour in,’” Charles read from the paper as she waited for the molasses to find its way from the bottom of the jug. “‘As many as twenty claims have been taken in this vicinity in one day. At that rate every quarter will have an occupant by spring.’” His face sobered some. “Sounds like we didn’t get here any too soon. I’d better inquire at the land office for the best prospects.”

He did not wait to eat his dinner, but drove with his bread in one hand and the reins in the other past the clusters of hay-topped sheds toward what Caroline had taken for a house and barn from the riverbank. They stopped between the two, and she saw that the pair of buildings comprised the whole of Independence’s business district. A double-log structure, the hotel, proclaimed itself the Judson House. The store with its sawn-board walls and shingled roof looked like it might just fit inside their house in Wisconsin. Size notwithstanding, it was by far the neatest, most sturdily built place in town, and it bore its few months’ weathering almost boastfully. The proud little building was already the matron of Main Street, Caroline mused, a grande dame in her graying boards and shining glass windows.

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