Caroline allowed herself a moment’s bewilderment, then set to her task. With the trowel she dug around the hardiest-looking plants, taking care not to sever their roots if she could avoid it as she prized them loose and fitted them carefully into the small wooden partitions. One by one she lifted them free and felt the tug and snap of the almost invisible fibers still clinging to the soil. When the flat was full, her neat kitchen garden looked bedraggled as a mouth full of pulled teeth.
She went to the wagon and unlatched the tailgate. For the first time, her resolve flagged. There was nowhere, not even if she could have stood the flat on its end and slipped it into a crevice like a book onto a shelf. Though it was filled with every tangible fragment of their lives, the wagon box looked unfamiliar. Unopened bags of seed Charles had brought from Oswego bulged into the aisle, narrowing it considerably. Their winter wraps, which would not fit into the carpetbags, hung draped over the churn handle. The displaced provisions crate balanced on the seat of the rocker. Caroline put her hand to one of the arms and gave it a gentle push. The chair replied with a short lurch and a disconcerting creak. She bent to peer under the seat to see whether it oughtn’t to be wedged, to keep the pliant willow runners from stressing.
“Oh,” Caroline said.
The space between the runners was empty. She lifted the wooden frame filled with Kansas soil and Wisconsin plants and slid it easily between them. It was as though the rocker had been holding a place for it.
By the time Charles came up the creek road, the empty coil of rope dangling at his side, Caroline had herself and the girls all freshly washed and braided, with their sunbonnets tied under their chins. “Come, girls,” she said. “Pa’s ready to go.”
Charles held up a hand to slow them. “Edwards will be along soon,” he called.
“For the plow?” Caroline asked.
Charles shook his head. “Not yet. Creek’s still too high from the spring thaw to get it across, even for Edwards.” He pulled a padlock from his hip pocket. “He gave me this, to put on the stable door so he can come for the plow when the water’s gone down.” Charles tossed the lock an inch or two into the air and let it drop heavily into his palm. “He wants to say goodbye. To you and the girls.”
“That’s kind of him,” Caroline said. A slim strand of sympathy twined around her heart at the thought of how it would pain the children. She shifted Carrie to her hip and rested a hand on Laura’s back. Mary and Laura both understood, in a way they had not before, how long and how far a goodbye might stretch. A year ago they had stood in the snow and kissed their cousins dutifully, without feeling the weight of it. Now the significance of the looming farewell made their faces long and sober.
“I’ll hitch up,” Charles said.
They waited in the shade of the wagon. The girls leaned against the wheels, holding the spokes as though there was comfort to be found in the smooth lengths of hickory. Caroline stood with Carrie in her arms, trying not to take it all in, trying to keep the freight of this single day from engraving itself upon all her memories of this place.
Jack growled so softly it was almost a purr. Caroline stepped into the sun to watch the creek road. The girls crouched, peeking under the belly of the wagon. A moment later, Edwards’s long gangly shadow came loping toward them.
First he shook hands with Charles. “Goodbye, Ingalls, and good luck.” Caroline knew from the jolly way he tried to say it that the men had already had their true goodbye. As Edwards approached, she saw the expression in his eyes that belied the smile he had determined to wear. Pleading she would do the same. She smiled back. For the children’s sake. That was what Caroline told herself, though she knew better. In truth they were playacting for one another, she and Charles and Edwards, only pretending the children were their audience.
“Goodbye, ma’am,” Edwards said, and his relief called a genuine smile to her lips. “I sure will never forget your kindness.”
“Nor I yours, Mr. Edwards. I don’t know how we would have done without your generosity,” she answered, wishing he could see all the memories that gleamed bright in her mind as she said it.
He gave her a quick little nod, almost curt, and set his jaw. Then Edwards crouched down on one knee and shook the girls’ hands as though they were grown-up ladies. First Mary, then Laura. Mary said, “Goodbye, Mr. Edwards,” as though she had rehearsed for days. Laura, Caroline knew, would not be able to speak. That child’s heart was too near her throat. Edwards’s lips bunched up tight as he and Laura regarded one another, helpless.
What her girls had meant to him, Caroline could only imagine. When they left, she thought to herself, he would be rootless.
It made no sense—he had come to Kansas without family, of his own accord—but Caroline knew it was so. Without feeling it happen, they had grafted him into their family tree, and he had done the same. And now they would leave him.
The impulse rose so clear and strong, Caroline did not question it. She passed Carrie to Charles and hurried to the back of the wagon to unlatch the tailgate. There in the corner beneath the rocker was her miniature garden, the dozens of tiny pairs of leaves reaching up like small arms. She chose one sweet potato seedling and plopped it into Mary and Laura’s old tin cup. Then she hefted the flat of plants and carried it to where Edwards waited, standing before him as though offering a tea tray filled with dainties.
“My best seedlings,” she explained. “Tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, beans, cucumbers, turnips, onions, peas.” Her voice hitched. “And sweet potato.” Her vision blurred, but she held her chin firm. “I’d thought to take them with us, but . . . ,” Caroline trailed off. She could not say what she wanted to say: They belong here. “They would stand a much better chance if you would care for them,” she finished.
“I’ll miss your good dumplings and cornbread, Mrs. Ingalls, but come fall these vegetables will brighten up my jackrabbit stew just fine.” He took the flat carefully, propping it against his hip like a baby so he could offer a free hand for her to shake.
Caroline took his hand in both of hers, clasping it for a long moment. “Mr. Edwards.” She steadied herself and spoke the thought one piece at a time, so that her voice would not falter: “You have been—as fine a neighbor—as we have ever had.” She gave his hand an extra squeeze at ever. “As we ever will have,” she amended.
His thin lips fought for the words. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh, Mr. Edwards,” Laura cried out, “thank you, thank you for going all the way to Independence to find Santa Claus for us.”
Caroline’s chest gave an almighty heave. Edwards’s hand broke from hers and he was away, striding through the long prairie grass.
Caroline put her hand on the lip of the wagon box and stood a moment, looking. The place itself tugged at her. All of it. From the bluffs and the creek road to the north, to the thin blue-white lip of the horizon to the south. It had never belonged to anyone before. It had not even belonged to them.
Eliza. Henry. Polly. Ma and Papa Frederick, her mind coaxed. Lansford Newcomb Ingalls. A stove and a pantry and rooms with doors.