"No!" he interrupted almost fiercely. "I won't do it! We're in debt as
far as we're ever going to be! Some things will remain ours!"
There was a short silence while both pursued their own thoughts. Emma
turned a worried face to him.
"Do you think you can make another crop?"
Joe looked at Emma and then he looked beyond her. Outside the night was
black, but in his mind's eye he could clearly see the ravaged fields. In
his muscles he could feel the ache of the plowing and the planting of
the new crop. In the pit of his stomach he could already feel the pain
and rage that he would feel if the new crop should be destroyed by
frost.
Emma waited, and then she got to her feet with an anxious haste. "Pete
Domley will pay for the seed, Joe. Barbara and I can help with the
planting."
Now suddenly he didn't want to comfort her any more, nor to bolster up
her hopes about the new crop. This was a time for facing facts.
"Emma," he said, and his lips felt dry and tight with the effort to
control himself. "Emma, there's free land for the taking in the west."
She drew back as though she had been slapped. "That's a dream, Joe. A
bright dream."
"It's not a dream," he said. "It's real land, and real people are going
out there to live on it."
She clasped her hands in front of her, and he saw that they were
trembling. Yet he made no move to go to her.
"We can't do it," she said. "Don't you see we can't do it? We've got six
children to think about."
"Other people are doing it with children," he said doggedly.
"You can't make me do it!" she said wildly. "I'm not going to leave this
house--not ever. We'll make out somehow. If need be, Pete Domley will
take you on for a year--he owes you that after what happened."
The mighty storm that had been brewing in him broke now, and he lashed
out at her. "I'm not going to be a hired man again, do you hear! I
finished with that, and I'm not going back to it!"
His voice, harsh and loud, shattered Emma's self-control. She had always
known that Joe could be angry, but never before had his anger been
directed against herself. She went white, swayed for a moment, and then
went unsteadily to the window. She stood clinging to the sill, staring
out into the blackness.
He watched her in silence. Then he went to her, turned her around and
made her look at him.
"Emma," he said through the pain in his throat. "You don't want me to be
a hired man again, do you, Emma?"
Her eyes filled with tears and she tried to speak. No sound came, but
she shook her head, No.
His voice grew humble now. He was deeply puzzled, and he begged her for
an answer that he could understand. "Why are you so much against the
west? Tell me truly. Tell me."
She found her voice. "I'm not against the west. I'm against leaving our
home. I want to stay here. I--I hoped we could live here forever. I--I'm
afraid, Joe."
He scowled, torn and uncertain.
"You've never been afraid before, Emma. We've been through a lot
together, a lot of struggle and a lot of worry. We worried when baby
Emma was sick, and when Tad fell out of the tree. It's always come out
all right."
"That was different," she stammered. "We--we were here among our own
people. If we needed help, we could get help."
"Emma," he whispered. "Emma--I can take care of you. I can take care of
the children."
She clutched him, buried her face in his neck.
"Emma," he said, "when we left your father, you were worried then, but
you faced up to it, and life was much better afterward."
"We were younger then," she said. "Oh, Joe--we were much younger, and we
had only Barbara. Now we've got six! Think of it, Joe! Six children, out
in the wilderness!"
He forced her away from him. With his hand under her chin he forced her
to look at him again. From the depths of his restless soul, from the
center of his self, his yearning for an independent life poured out
through his eyes and entreated her to understand him. His voice was
hoarse with the intensity of his longing.
"Emma," he said. "I can take care of you. Trust me, dearest."
Something dissolved inside of her. She could not deny him any longer. He
was begging her for his freedom to be his own man. He was begging her
for space to grow in, and for their children to grow in. He was begging
her to be brave for his sake, so that he could fulfill his deepest
needs. Whatever her misgivings, whatever her terror, she must go with
him into the unknown.
She put her hands on his shoulders and looked squarely into his eyes. "I
do trust you, Joe," she said quietly. "We'll go west. We'll go just as
soon as we can get ready."