Caroline: Little House, Revisited(115)

“It all fit on the way in,” Charles said when she handed the crate up over the tailgate. “Seems like it ought to all fit on the way out.” He stood stooping with the crate in his hands, surveying the inside of the wagon.

“There’s plenty of space, here,” she said, patting the empty boards at the rear corner—the same place the crate had just vacated.

Charles shook his head. “Saving that for your rocking chair,” he said.

Oh, how she wanted to smile just then.

Caroline turned numbly from the wagon and there was her kitchen garden. She had neglected to water this morning. Though the plants were not truly wilting yet, she could see they were beginning to suffer. The leaves had a soft look about them, almost like cloth. A few more hours and they would be slumped, the thin rib down each center pliable as a hair. She went to the well and filled one pail, then another. There was no time for it, no sense in it. It was almost cruel. Tomorrow they would wilt again, and there would be no respite.

Caroline could not talk herself out of it. Tenderly she watered the tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots without risking a glance toward the wagon or the cabin. If Charles or the children asked, she would answer simply that the plants needed water. She did not need them to understand any more than that. Halfway through the cabbages she paused to look back over the ground she had covered. Already the jagged edges of the tomato leaves were tilting gratefully upward again. Caroline knew then that she could not abandon these plants to the mercy of the sun and the jackrabbits. Not after she had carried the seeds all the way from Wisconsin.

She moved more quickly through the beans, cucumbers, peas, turnips, and onions, more conscious now of both the time she had used and the time she still needed to accomplish her task. Then she went around back of the cabin, where the flat she had used to start the sweet potatoes stood propped against the chimney. Caroline counted the square partitions along two edges, multiplied, and divided. Room for only four plants from each row. By the numbers, it was not worth the effort. And her rocker was already straining the capacity of the wagon box. She dared not ask Charles to make room for one more thing. Caroline picked up the trowel, undeterred.

Hurrying around the corner of the house, she met Charles on his way to the stable. He carried a small coil of rope. If he took notice of the garden implements in her hands, he gave no indication. Perhaps he thought she was carrying them to the wagon, to pack. “If you don’t object, I’d like to take the cow and calf over to the Scotts’ claim,” he said. “The mustangs will outpace the calf if we try to bring the cattle along. Maybe the cow, too.” He slapped the rope against his thigh and said with a faint note of petulance, “Even if they could keep up we can’t afford feed for all of them.”

Caroline nodded. It was fitting, after all the Scotts had done for them. “That would be a fine thing, Charles. You’ll give Mrs. Scott my thanks?” she asked. “For all her kindness. She has been . . . ,” Caroline’s lips tightened, tugged by a pang of loyalty to her blood kin. Yet it was true. Though the threads were of different fibers, her tie to Mrs. Scott was as firm as the knots that joined her to Eliza, and to Polly. However true, it was more than she could ask Charles to relay. “We’ll always be beholden to them, cow or no cow,” she finished.

“I’ll thank her as best I can,” Charles promised. “I want to offer Edwards the plow,” he added. “I can’t figure any way to pack it. The plow we left in Pepin ought to be there in the barn yet, unless Gustafson made off with it.”

“Yes,” Caroline said. “I would be proud for Mr. Edwards to have the plow. He’ll want to pay you,” she supposed.

“He will, but I won’t let him.” The challenge of compelling Edwards to accept such a gift seemed to buoy him so that he came within a fraction of smiling. “Can you be ready when I get back—say an hour or so?”

“I think so. Yes.”

That satisfied him. Caroline waited while he went into the stable. He came out leading the cow by her long twisting horns. The calf followed, untethered.

“An hour, then,” he confirmed. He grimaced as if drawing a fine distinction. “Probably a little more. Scott’s a talker.”

“An hour,” Caroline repeated. He made no move to leave. His eyes went over and over her face. Seeking something? A flush crept up her neck. Did he guess what she intended to do with the flat and trowel after all? Suddenly he ducked forward and kissed her cheek, then strode off to the east, the calf trotting behind.

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.