Caroline: Little House, Revisited(38)

The man swiped a hand through the air. “You’re welcome to camp as long as you need. I heard a shot this morning and thought I ought to make sure there wasn’t any trouble. The name’s Jacobs,” he said to Charles, then “ma’am,” with a nod to Caroline and a glance that traveled down to her lap.

Caroline could not tell whether it was the plates of purloined goose or her own form that drew his attention; she was rounded enough at the navel now that anyone who chanced to look might notice. Either way, his eyes did not linger.

Charles extended his hand to Jacobs. Caroline folded her fingers inside her palms to hide the lines of grime under her nails. “Ingalls,” Charles said. “Headed down into Montgomery County.”

“Looks like you’ve come a distance already.”

Caroline would have liked to whisk a sheet over the camp at that. Anyone would think them vagabonds, with their hacked-limb shelter and soggy wraps slumped over the tarpaulin ropes. This man had a silky black beard trimmed so short and neat it lay flat as horsehair. For the first time she noticed how Charles’s hair had grown. The back of her own neck itched to see how far it had strayed into his collar.

“Left Pepin County, Wisconsin, nearly five weeks ago.”

“That so?” Jacobs asked, but his attention was on Ben and Beth. Caroline marked the way he studied them. If he had looked at her so intently, she would not have thought him a gentleman. “Fine, strong team you’ve got there,” the man said.

“That they are.”

Jacobs ventured further. “Fact is, I’ve been on the lookout for a good pair of draft horses. Got three and a half years in on a claim the next section east of here, and a preemption filed on this one. It’s a railroad section, $5.50 an acre.”

Charles gave a low whistle at the price—better than four times what they hoped to pay.

Jacobs nodded. “Don’t I know it. One fine crop would put me within arm’s reach of paying it off—that is, if I can clear enough acreage to sow in time. I wonder if you’d consider a trade?”

Charles glanced at Caroline. She said nothing. “That would depend on your offer.”

Jacobs looked down at his horse, then back to Charles, weighing him in a different way than he had measured Ben and Beth. If he looked much longer, Caroline thought, she would be compelled to rise and stand beside her husband. “I’ll offer my matched pair of mustangs,” Jacobs said at last. “This one and her twin sister.”

Caroline considered the pony. Where Ben’s and Beth’s muscles bowed outward, this creature was small and sleek. Not much more than fourteen hands high, but with a spry stance that belied her stature. And a coat so bright and black, just looking at her gave Caroline pleasure.

“The other mare’s set to foal this summer, so there’s a mule colt in the bargain,” Jacobs went on. “I’ve had a look over your wagon, and there’s nothing in there the pair of them can’t pull as far as the Territory.”

Had he inspected the wagon with the same intensity that he scrutinized everything else? Caroline did not like to think so.

“Guess there’s no harm in going for a look,” Charles said.



“When will we have dinner, Ma?” Laura wondered again. She had been promised dumplings and gravy, and though breakfast still filled her belly, her mind was already hungry with the thought.

“Not until after Pa comes back,” Caroline answered. She laid her dish towel over the iron spider to keep the flies from the drippings. The plates were wiped and the camp tidied, and still he had not returned. A pot filled with the remains of the goose simmered at the edge of the fire.

Caroline brushed her hands on her apron. The calico was tacky with the week’s grime. More than a week. Here it was already Tuesday—another washing day come and gone—and she could not leave the girls alone with the fire to haul water for laundry. And there would be no mending, for her work basket was down in the wagon. There was not a lick of work she could do until Charles returned. Yet she could not sit idle. If she did not busy her hands somehow, her thoughts would begin to chase in circles. Charles had not been gone long, not really, but he had already taken more than enough time to ride half a mile and see a horse.

Beth nickered and tugged at her picket pin. Caroline went to her and reached up to rub the long white blaze on her forehead. “Easy now, Beth,” she said. “They’ll come back. Your Ben and my Charles, they always come back.” Beth shook her head, tinkling the iron ring on her picket pin. Caroline rubbed Beth’s nose and scratched under her chin. She had not known Beth to be nervous before. She half wondered whether the animal could sense what Charles was contemplating on his errand.

“Laura, don’t,” Mary said behind her. Caroline turned. Laura had pulled a stick from the kindling pile to draw on the ground. “You’ll get all dirty.”

Caroline looked at Laura’s muddy squiggles and zigzags and her thoughts lightened. “Mary and Laura,” she asked, “how would you like to learn to write your names?”

Mary’s nose gave a dubious little crinkle. “In the dirt?” she asked.

It was only a single bristle of irritation, and Caroline did not even feel entitled to that. Few would believe her if she said so, but such a fastidious child was not always a blessing. What did Mary expect? She had neither slate nor pencil. All their books and paper but for Charles’s weather journal were buried at the bottom of her trunk. Still, there must be something she could contrive.