Caroline: Little House, Revisited(39)
Caroline went to the kitchen crate and opened the sack of meal. Her eyes measured the scanty depth. It would not be waste if it fed their minds, she decided, and pulled out a fistful to sprinkle onto a clean tin plate.
“On a dish?” Laura asked.
“Come and see,” Caroline said.
With the handle of the wooden spoon, she traced an L in the grit. “L is for Laura,” she began.
Over ten years had passed since she had been anyone’s teacher, yet the charge of excitement it gave her was as potent as ever. She had not been much more than a girl herself then, but Caroline remembered how it had felt to coax a pupil to the threshold of understanding. Then that breathless moment—waiting, watching, for the mind to reach forward and grasp. Oh, she had shown Mary how to sew a seam, and both of them were mastering a growing list of little household tasks, but this was different. This was real learning. And these were her own two girls.
Both of them were so quick to learn, Caroline’s pride and pleasure whirled inside her. Each stroke held her poised for the next like their first wobbling steps forward.
Mary frowned at her work. “I want it to look like yours, Ma.”
Caroline lavished them with her best praise. “You have both done very well.”
“I mean when you write letters on paper. It’s prettier, all long and fine.”
“Like ribbons,” Laura agreed.
“Our letters look like sticks,” Mary said.
“This is called printing. Once you have learned to print each letter nicely, I will teach you how to write.”
“Show us, now, Ma,” Mary begged. “Please.”
Caroline gave the plate a shake, then drummed the underside with her fingertips to even the surface of the meal. She eased a hairpin from its nest and began to trail it across the tin, taking extra care with the flourishes and gracefully knotting the cross of each t.
Dear Ma and Papa Frederick,
The girls have asked me to write a few lines. Though these words will not reach you, I hope that you are well and not worrying yourselves on our account.
Beth whinnied, and there was Charles coming up over the rise. A bulging flour sack rode on his back as though he were Santa Claus. Suddenly self-conscious of what she was doing, Caroline shook her letter from the plate and quickly threaded her hairpin back into place. “Well, Charles?” she asked before he had one foot out of the stirrups.
He swung down from the saddle and tossed the sack into the shelter. “Straw,” he said. “Jacobs spared us some for the tick.”
“Charles! You didn’t ask him for such a thing?”
“Pshaw. You know me better than that. He offered. Said he’d seen the straw on the ground by the wagon and figured we’d have use for some fresh.”
Caroline did not know how to greet this news. She could not fault the man’s generosity, but there seemed to be nothing about them that escaped Jacobs’s notice. If they must be so bared, she wished he would do the courtesy of leaving some things unremarked.
“Man’s got a good piece of land up there,” Charles went on, squatting down to peek inside the bake oven. “I can see why he wants to trade. There’s a good many trees to clear, but none that’ll leave stumps anything like I grubbed out of the Big Woods. Ben and Beth should have an easy time of it.”
“And his team?” Caroline prodded softly.
“Oh, they’re a fine-looking pair. You’d think their coats were woven out of black silk, the way he keeps them brushed. Jacobs is so eager to get Ben and Beth started on his acreage, he offered to stable both teams until the creek goes down.”
Again that keen generosity. It was beginning to rub almost too close to charity. Something in her wanted to object, if only to give herself a moment to hold the decision in her own hands. “It sounds as though it’s more than a fair proposal,” she allowed. “But without Ben and Beth how will we plow our own claim?”
Charles pulled the fading Montgomery County handbill from his pocket and passed it to her. Its corners were rounded with wear. “‘Wide Open Land: One Dollar and a Quarter an Acre,’” he quoted. “Where we’re going I won’t need draft horses to break ground. Anyhow, place like that’ll be flooded with folks coming and going before long. Plenty of opportunity to trade for a bigger team if these two aren’t up to the job. Meantime it’ll save us a week’s worth of feed and then some. Mustangs won’t eat like draft horses. They’ll need less land for grazing, and less timber for a barn. I can’t think of any good reason to refuse.”
“If he cheats us, Charles—”
“I don’t see how he can. A thief has to be able to run if he wants to keep ahead of the law. Man’s got a wife and four boys, not a one of them over eight years old. There’s a spanking new cookstove and a pair of glass windows in the kitchen. That reminds me.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a bundle made of a blue-checked napkin. “Mrs. Jacobs sent a fresh baking of light biscuits.”
They were warm yet. Caroline untied the corners of the cloth. A moist, yeasty cloud filled her nose. “My land,” Caroline said. She sat slowly down on the spring seat and tapped the golden bottom of one biscuit with her fingernail. The light hollow sound set her mouth swimming.
“There’s just something about them, Caroline,” Charles continued. “I know Ben and Beth’ll pull us anywhere I point them, but this pair seems to want to move. Their feet are as itchy as mine.” The spark in his eyes told her the deal was as good as done, but still he looked at her, asking.