The Lost Wagon Part 14

Her throat worked for a moment, then hastily she changed the subject.

"About the cow, Joe--I'm grateful to you for making it easy for Barbara."

He said with honest surprise, "_I_ made it easy for her?"

"She saved her tears for you, didn't she?"

"Yes. But--"

She said quietly, "One of the reasons I love you so much is because you really don't know why a little girl would rather cry on your shoulder."

She took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. "Pete butchered the cow properly."

Joe said, "Well, it will be a lot of jerky and pickled beef to take along."

She smiled tearfully at him. "Who in this family would eat Clover, Joe?

I asked Pete to take the beef down and sell it to Lester Tenney. We can use more money, now that we're Oregon-bound."

Joe scratched his head. "Guess you're right. I couldn't enjoy the beef myself and we do need money." Money. And provisions. A barrel of corn meal, Seeley had said. All the eatables they could carry.

"There's a lot of planning to do," he said to Emma.

"A lot of planning," she echoed, nodding, with an effort at crisp composure.

Go to Independence, Grandpa Seeley had told him. Get on the Oregon Trail and use common sense. It had all seemed so simple, but there was more to it than that. For instance, though they probably could camp beside the wagon much of the time, suppose there were stormy nights and they had to sleep inside? Provision would have to be made for it. The wagon itself would have to receive a thorough checking, with faulty parts replaced.

The box would almost surely have to be built higher, and a canvas cover fitted tightly. Every item that went along, from the smallest to the largest, would have to have its own place. All of it had to be planned, and Joe had planned none of it.

Barbara came out of the room she shared with little Emma and Joe's spirits rose. At the same time, he was puzzled and slightly amused. Only a short time ago he had held Barbara in his arms, completely crushed and wilted. Now there was no trace of that, but only the sheer loveliness, intensified by excitement, that almost always walked with this girl and that imparted itself to whatever or whomever she encountered. She smiled.

"Why don't you go fis.h.i.+ng and do your pondering, Daddy? You won't be working the fields this afternoon."

Joe looked gratefully at her. All women seemed to know all men better than any man understood any one woman. Emma knew that he needed solitude sometimes for thinking about his problems. Like her mother, Barbara seemed to know it too.

"Now say," Joe said, "I might just do that."

Not for a long while had he taken the time to go fis.h.i.+ng, though he had often wished mightily that he could go. When he fished, he knew a serenity of soul and peace of mind that he found in doing nothing else, and it made no difference whether or not he caught anything. The mind of a true fisherman is not on petty subjects, and suddenly Joe knew that he must go.

"Hurry up, Pa!" Tad called in the door. "I've got the worms all dug and the poles all ready."

"I thought you'd gone to see Buster Trevelyan?"

"I did see him. He helped me dig worms."

Joe felt that somehow he must be a very shallow and easily led person.

His daughter had suggested that he go fis.h.i.+ng. His wife had told him the same thing, though she had not needed to speak. Now his son appeared with fis.h.i.+ng tackle and bait. Joe hesitated, and Emma urged,

"Go ahead. You won't get any work done today anyhow and fis.h.i.+ng will be good for you."

"Well, we might get a mess of fish."

He left the house, followed by the jubilant Tad, who had two poles with lines, floats, and hooks attached to them slung over his shoulder and a hollow branch containing worms in his hand. Mike tagged amiably along, bristled hopefully when a neighbor's dog crossed Pete Domley's pasture, and relaxed sadly when the dog kept on going. Mike didn't care what he fought, or where or when, as long as he could fight, and Joe looked at his son's dog with a new eye. Mike had never been an a.s.set on the farm, but he might be one on the Oregon Trail.

Tad led the way to a long, still pool bordered by sycamores and willows.

Joe took his pole, baited, cast, and watched his bobber float with the gentle current. He eyed a school of minnows that were swimming in the shoals and looked again at his bobber. The minnows in the shallow edges of the pool were quiet, therefore nothing had been chasing them for a while and it was Joe's guess that the fish wouldn't bite well today. If the ba.s.s were feeding, the minnows would be more nervous and alert. Joe asked his son a question that had been on his mind.

"How'd you know I'd go fis.h.i.+ng this afternoon?"

"If we're goin' to Oregon, you sure wouldn't be workin' the fields."

"Is that the only reason you knew?"

"Nope. I just kind of thought it was a day for you and me to go fis.h.i.+n'."

"Did your mother or sister tell you to get the worms and tackle?"

Tad said indignantly, "Now, Pa, you know they wouldn't be tellin' me to take you fis.h.i.+n'!"

Joe knew that he was not telling the truth, and that Emma must have told him to dig worms and arrange fis.h.i.+ng tackle, and for a moment he felt a slight annoyance. Then he relented. If anyone told the strict truth all the time, Joe felt, they'd be very hard to live with. Tad's was a harmless deception. The worst the youngster had in him was a streak of wildness, and he'd outgrow that. The Oregon Trail, Joe reflected, might take some of it out of him.

Joe relaxed on the stream bank, giving himself completely to thoughts of this new venture and at peace with himself and the world. In his wood lot were both hickory and oak that he had felled last year and left to season. For a share of the timber, John Geragty would work it into proper sizes at his saw mill. Maybe it would be a good idea to carry a spare reach for the wagon and spare axles. They could always be slung underneath without adding too much to the load. Since they couldn't take everything with them--or nearly everything--they would have a lot to sell or trade. The kitchen stove for one thing. He swallowed a lump when he thought of Emma standing at the stove, touching it lightly with her fingertips. Then he made himself go on with his planning. The planning, right now, was a whole lot more necessary than the stove. They would have to sell the stove. Stoves were none too plentiful in this country and lots of farm wives cooked over fireplaces. The stove should get them a new wagon cover, which Les Tenney carried in stock, and something else besides. Now--

Tad yelled, "Pa! Your line!"

Joe awakened with a start to see his bobber gone down and his line moving slowly out into the stream. He yanked on the pole, lifted a two-pound ba.s.s clear of the water, and brought it, flopping, to the gra.s.s beside him. Mike, who had been asleep in the gra.s.s, awakened with a throaty bark and came over to inspect the catch. Joe shoved him aside, and Tad said approvingly,

"Gee! That's a nice one!"

"It's not too bad," Joe agreed. "Mike, get away!"

He slid the ba.s.s onto a willow stringer that Tad cut and put it back in the water, weighting one end of the stringer with a rock. Then he gave all his attention to fis.h.i.+ng. While he had been thinking of Oregon, the ba.s.s must have started feeding for the minnows were more alert now. Even as Joe watched, a school of them darted this way and that while something dark and sullen lunged among them.

Two minutes later Joe caught another ba.s.s, and before the sun started to set, he and Tad had fourteen. Joe borrowed Tad's knife, which was always razor-sharp, and knelt beside their catch.

"I'll show you a trick," he promised.

He scaled the fish, removed their heads and fins, and made a clean cut down the back. Deftly, needing only a moment, he worked the flesh away and left the bones. Tad knelt near by, watching and admiring every move, and Joe said patiently,

"Move a little away, will you? I'd sure hate to slice you up along with these fish."

Tad grinned and moved a couple of inches back. Joe worked on. When he was done he had only boneless fish, with all the offal left behind, and there had been no waste of anything. Joe smacked his lips.

"You cook something out of a fish when you cook the bones into it," he said. "Wait'll you try these."

"Maybe Mom will fix them tonight, huh?"

"Could be. Let's go find out."

Pete Domley's white horse was tied outside the door, and Pete came from the house to meet them. Joe handed the filleted fish, which he was carrying on a slab of wood, to Tad.

"Take these to your mother, will you? She'll want them soon if we're going to have them for supper."