Apprehension feathered through Caroline’s stomach to see all of them together, yet so tight with quiet. The wagonload of family that had come to tell her own ma of her father’s drowning in Lake Michigan had been muffled by the same sort of silence.
“Here, Caroline,” Henry said, taking hold of one handle of her trunk. “Let me.” Peter and George both stepped forward to latch the wagon box after them, and suddenly all the men were inspecting lashings and harnesses.
The women stood before the wagon as if it were an open grave, their noses pink with cold and the labor of not crying. The children, made skittish by their parents’ restraint, collected in shy clumps around their mothers.
Practicality coaxed Caroline’s tongue loose. “Take anything you can use from the pantry and the attic,” she told Eliza and Polly and Mother Ingalls.
Polly thrust out a handful of brown paper packets tied with black thread. “Seeds,” she said. “The best of my pumpkins and tomatoes, and those good pickling cucumbers. And don’t you try to say no, Caroline Ingalls.”
Caroline nearly smiled. Thank goodness Polly was always Polly. She could not have stood it if her brusque sister-in-law were soft with her today. Caroline obeyed and tucked the packets into her pocket.
“Write,” Eliza asked. “We can’t send the circulator until we hear where you’ve settled.”
“Charles has a handbill from the land office in Montgomery County. He’s told Gustafson to send the next payment there . . . ,” Caroline trailed off.
Mother Ingalls handed Caroline a jug of maple syrup. “You won’t find this in Kansas for anything like a reasonable price. Eat it or trade it—whichever brings you the most sweetness,” she said with a wink.
“Thank you,” Caroline said. “I wish there was room in your sleigh for my rocker,” she told Eliza.
“Hasn’t Gustafson bought your furniture?”
Caroline leaned across the press of Eliza’s belly to kiss her sister’s cheek. “I’d rather keep it in the family,” she whispered. “Promise me you’ll take it if Peter can contrive a way to get it home.”
“Of course.” Horses’ hooves crunching across the snow interrupted her. “Oh my land,” Eliza said.
Caroline turned, and there was Charley Carpenter’s sleigh coming over the hill, with her sister Martha beside him. Martha’s oldest boy, Willie, jumped out to help his mother climb down over the runner so Charley could lower a bushel basket swaddled in woolen veils into his wife’s arms.
“Martha,” Caroline gasped. “Oh, Martha, you shouldn’t have, not so soon.”
“I know it,” Martha said, trying to laugh, “but that can’t be helped.” Her voice knotted. “I had to see you, sister, and you had to see our Millie.”
“Martha Jane Carpenter, you don’t mean to say you brought the baby?” Mother Ingalls said.
“Oh, pshaw. She’s snug as a dumpling. My Charley made a nest of buffalo robes down between our feet for the basket, and I put two hot flatirons under her pillow. Look and see, Caroline.”
Caroline pared back the layers of veils. Wreathed in flannels and goose down lay her niece, a wren-faced little thing, still ruddy with newness. The warmth of the baby’s breath moistened the air around her. “Three weeks old yesterday,” Martha said.
“I’m glad you came,” Caroline said, though they’d only made it harder. The longer she looked at the child, the more the membrane holding back her tears thinned.
“You’ll come to our place and warm up those flatirons before you go,” Polly told Martha. “You’ll all come.”
The image of all of them crowded into Henry’s cabin burned Caroline’s throat like hot maple sugar. All at once, there was no more to be said but goodbye.
The men embraced briefly, a mittened clap on the back signaling the moment to break away. Caroline hugged her sisters and Charles’s as long as she dared, tightening her clasp as she felt the flutter of emotion rising and then thrusting herself apart with a kiss. Eliza clung to her a moment too long. “Write,” she said again. Caroline forced herself to nod. Something like a wad of wool had lodged behind her tongue.
Mother Ingalls saw her struggling and said not a word, simply took her by the shoulders for a good, bracing squeeze as they pressed their cold cheeks together. The older woman’s firm smile tightened Caroline at the seams, so that when she reached the men Caroline found herself able to do for them what Mother Ingalls had done for her. She would not have them shame themselves with tears on her account.
“Look in on Ma and Papa Frederick when you can,” she asked her brother. “I wrote to tell them.” Henry nodded. A flash of heat stung the rims of her eyes and nose. She had not written of the coming child, had not told them that if it were a boy, he would be called Charles Frederick, for her husband and her stepfather. “There hasn’t been an answer. I never expected them to come, not with the way driving pains Papa Frederick, but I had hopes for a letter,” she confessed.
“There could be one waiting by now. If there isn’t, I’ll send Ma’s reply on to you when it comes,” Henry promised. “You know they would be here if they could.”
“Kiss your cousins,” Polly commanded her brood. “You might not ever see them again.” So the children solemnly kissed and hugged Mary and Laura, like little ladies and gentlemen performing a soundless square dance.
“You first, Caroline,” Charles said into the long pause that followed. “I’ll hand the girls up after.”
With Charles at one elbow and Henry bracing the other, Caroline stepped up onto the doubletree and turned to perch on the edge of the sideboard. She grasped a bow and swung her legs over the wagon box. Inside it smelled of hemp, pine pitch, and linseed oil.
“Upsy-daisy,” Charley Carpenter said as he scooped Mary up by the underarms. Her feet scrabbled in the air until her toes found the sideboard. Caroline steadied her with a smile and a pair of firm hands around Mary’s waist.
Before Mary’s shoes were on the floor, Laura was climbing between the spokes and the singletree. “I want to do it myself, like Ma did,” she insisted.
“You’re not tall enough to reach over the sideboards, little Half-Pint,” Charles said. Only the tips of her mittens peeped stubbornly over the edge of the box. Caroline could hear her shoes scraping at the boards for a place to grip. “Maybe by the time we get to Kansas you’ll be big enough,” Charles teased, hoisting her up.
Caroline settled the girls onto the straw tick with the old gray blanket as Charles shook his father’s hand and clambered in over the jockey box. With a lurch, he dropped down onto the spring seat beside her. Father Ingalls handed up the reins.
Charles cleared his throat. “All ready?” he called over his shoulder.
“Yes, Charles,” Caroline answered softly.