Caroline: Little House, Revisited(105)

As she admired the pictures in her mind, Caroline found herself humming without regard for where the tune had come from. When she realized, she swallowed and stood still, listening, to be sure.

Indians.

It could not be. Their camps had been empty since before Christmas. But it was. There was no mistaking that sound. She let go of the fistful of feathers and wiped the sweat from her palms. Was that why Edwards had come calling the day before? She had been so pleased by the prairie chicken, she suspected nothing but neighborliness.

Caroline felt as she had the night on the prairie when they had lost Jack and Charles had nearly shot the bulldog by mistake as he approached the campfire. Her body had poised itself on the edge of fear, but her mind was not yet fully afraid. Her mind wanted to know more. She went to the window and listened again.

It was music, at least. The melody was unlike any song she had ever sung, but Caroline could find the pattern in it. The beat was choppy, like the sound of the girls jumping in and out of their hopscotch squares. Perhaps that was why she had not recognized its source sooner. This song was the opposite in every way of the sounds they had heard in the fall. Even as she cautioned herself that she could not be sure, Caroline ascribed joyfulness to it.

What sort of song would they sing after killing a man?

Caroline stepped back, bewildered. That thought had come from her, as if her mind had no concern for the consequences of its thoughts. “Stop that,” she said, as though one of the children had talked back to her. It had no business asking such questions of its own accord, questions she did not want asked, much less answered.



A little more than two hours after that, Charles was home. Laura yelped and Jack whined, but Caroline did not let them outside to greet him. She went alone to help him unload. Together they hefted the new plow into the stable. Charles locked the door.

The Indians were still singing.

“I thought they’d gone,” Caroline said.

Charles sighed. He had expected this, though Caroline could not tell whether his reaction was composed of relief or dread. “So did I. Word in town is they’ve come back from the winter camps one last time,” he said. “The Indian agent will lead them south to the new reservation in a few weeks.”

She felt herself calculating the time as if it were an absolute measure—as Laura had calculated Charles’s absence. Not a couple, not several. A few. Three weeks, then. Twenty-one days. She would allow them that much without complaint. Every day of it, she would pray morning and night for their departure.

Inside the cabin all was smiles and jollity. Charles had traded well. Everything they needed and more was piled on the table, down to coffee and seed potatoes. Instead of white sugar he had bought all manner of treats. Out of a paper sack came a packet of crackers and a jar of cucumber pickles. Caroline’s mouth and eyes both watered at the sight of those little green gherkins bobbing in their brine. It had been nearly a year since she had asked him to look for pickles at the store in Independence, and all that time he had not forgotten.

From beneath the flour sack Charles drew an oblong package, wrapped in paper and tied with white string. He dropped it onto the table with a soft slap and raised his eyebrows at her. It could only be fabric—enough for a new spring dress. Caroline pinched her lip between her teeth as she untied the wrapping. Charles had only once come close to choosing a calico she did not like, but his indifference toward the proprieties of fashion always carried a certain amount of risk. He would have bought yards and yards of brilliant Turkey red, if he thought she possessed the gumption to wear it.

Caroline exhaled at the sight of it. The softest lavender ground, like lilacs, with a spray of feathery gray fern leaves. In the center lay a fat coil of narrow gray braid to trim the hem. Had there been a woman at the store to help him coordinate the goods? she wondered. They complemented each other perfectly: the trim, a few shades darker than the gray in the fabric, serving to accentuate the delicate pattern. The calico was Charles’s doing, that was sure. Lavender was not a color she would have thought to choose for herself. It was a demure shade, fit for a little girl’s Sunday best, and entirely impractical for an everyday dress.

Caroline loved it. Under the hot Kansas sun it would be gentle to the skin and refreshing to the eye. Already she could imagine how Charles would look at her when she wore it. He loved to see her wreathed in color.

“It’s too much,” she told him, as she always did.

His face told her it wasn’t nearly enough, as it always did.

For the girls there were cunning little black rubber hair combs that fit like bandeaus, with a star shape cut out from the center and backed with ribbon. Blue satin for Mary and red satin for Laura, just as if Caroline had picked them out herself. The girls were enraptured. They gazed at each other, then swapped combs so they could see their own. Laura put hers on Jack and squealed with laughter at his dubious face, crowned by such finery.

“Charles, you didn’t get yourself a thing,” Caroline said. His eyes twinkled at her. Both of them knew that was not true.





Thirty




Caroline stirred one more half spoonful of sugar into the pot of stewed dried blackberries, smiling to herself. Charles would not expect a treat at noon, in the middle of the week. She could hear him calling to the mustangs: Gee up now, Pet. Come on, girls! Straight and true, straight and true. Below his voice, the blade of the plow went sighing through the earth. Caroline smiled inwardly. Charles handled that plow as though it were another wife, as though he had never owned such a thing. She suspected he had named it. In a minute she would send Laura out to wave him in for dinner. Mary was laying the table, and the cornbread needed only to brown.