Caroline: Little House, Revisited(46)
“Pickles,” Charles repeated. “That’s it?” Caroline nodded, wanting very much to wriggle out from under the bemused slant of his smile. “Laura, hand me the fiddle box.” He pocketed a twenty dollar note and went inside. Before Caroline could wipe the crumbs from Mary’s and Laura’s mouths, he was back again.
“Nobody there,” he said.
“What do you mean, Charles?”
“Shelves are full of goods, but there’s not a soul inside.” He shrugged and walked across the street toward the hotel.
Caroline turned again to the brightly polished window panes. How could a store keep itself stocked and spotless with no one tending it?
A sort of grumble came up from under the wagon. Surprise lifted Caroline’s brow as the unfamiliar sound registered. Jack, who had been every bit as docile with the children as Jacobs promised, was growling. She looked out the back of the wagon and saw what Jack saw: a man with a hay rake over his shoulder was nearing. The man leaned the rake against the door jamb of the store in a way that suggested to Caroline that he owned the place before approaching cautiously. “Hey there, fella,” he said, and squatted down with his palm open for the dog to assess. “Take it easy, now.” And then to Caroline when Jack dismissed him with a snort, “Looking to stock up, ma’am?”
“Yes, sir. My husband—” She did not want to shout or point with the girls looking on. “See him there, headed for the hotel?”
The man stood and hallooed.
Charles turned. “This your place?”
“That it is. I’m Wilson. Sorry to keep you waiting. Irwin and I—the two of us run the store—we got so busy raking hay we didn’t see you pull up. It’s a mite early for haymaking, but come winter there’s no excuse to be short of fodder in this country.”
“A sound investment,” Charles said, so gravely that Caroline could hear a joke coming behind it. “Whatever your stock doesn’t eat, you can likely sell as roofing.”
Wilson laughed. “That’s a fact. The Indians call it Hay House Town.” Chuckling, the two men headed together through the doorway. Their boots were ringing on the board floor before Wilson turned and asked, “Will you come in, ma’am?”
There was nothing she wanted more just then than to go into that store. The reflection of the wagon cover had filled its windows so that from where she sat Caroline could only just see the shelf tops. Since the wagon stopped her mind had been fleshing them out with neat rows of provisions in their sacks and cans and jars, polished tools, bright bolts of cloth. Her eyes would be so grateful for such plenty—not only the quantity, but the color and variety. Even the crisp black words printed on the labels would be a treat. Most of all, she wanted to stand inside those square board walls with a straight, solid roof over her head. Caroline grasped the wagon bow, this time to offset the way her balance shifted now when she stood, and realized just in time.
It was no longer seemly for her to be in public. How many weeks had passed since any man but Charles had seen her? Three, and Mr. Jacobs had likely suspected even then. She glanced up and down the street. There was no other woman abroad, much less one in her condition. Sitting still up on the spring seat it was not so plain, but if she stepped from under the wagon’s cover, the outline of her dress would make her instantly, doubly conspicuous.
Still, she hated to say no. There was a thin, wheedling feeling taking hold of her throat that would not let the word pass. It was such a rough place, she argued with herself, and men would not show their disapproval with the same sidelong glances as women. No, men would self-consciously look away, not knowing how to speak to her—or whether to speak to her at all—and that would be every bit as bad. Worse. Wilson himself might blush to the collar if she stood.
Caroline let go of the wagon bow and the spring seat gave a tiny sigh, as though disappointment had made her heavier. It was no business of hers to diminish whatever propriety this fledgling town had managed to accumulate by indulging herself, so she said, “Thank you, no. The children and I will wait in the wagon.”
The only sounds that drifted out to her were footsteps, and the indistinct back-and-forth of two voices. Then Charles, louder and clearer: “A dollar a pound for white sugar? Haven’t you heard, the war’s over?”
Had she heard right? They had never seen the like of such prices in Wisconsin. Caroline held her breath for Wilson’s response.
Wilson’s voice rose slightly to meet Charles’s, but his tone stayed level. “You’ll find there’s not tremendous call for white sugar out here, friend.”
“Wouldn’t think so at those rates,” Charles said. “I’d rather preempt an acre of land than twenty ounces of sugar.”
A dollar a pound. It staggered the mind to think of anyone in these hay shanties paying that kind of money for such a small luxury. President Grant himself would have to come calling before she would put white sugar on her table at that price. And what of the things they did need—the brown sugar, cornmeal, and flour? The arithmetic was numbing, the swelling figures painful as bruises to contemplate. If all Wilson’s prices were so steep, by fall there would be nothing but green felt lining the fiddle box.
“A man can’t expect Mississippi River prices on the Verdigris,” Wilson’s voice went on. A flare of anger blurred Caroline’s mental arithmetic at that. Of course they had expected prices to rise as they approached the frontier, but three and four times more? That was something else altogether. From the way Wilson was talking now, Caroline could guess that Charles had reacted no better. The storekeeper’s voice sounded as though it were backing away from what he had just said. She slid across the spring seat to listen more closely.