"Nope," Joe evaded. "Start the bellows will you, honey?"
Barbara hesitated a moment and Joe waited. The past days had wrought a
change in his daughter, making her all the more difficult to understand.
At times she seemed to have a new maturity, as though she were already a
woman, and at others she was a trembling child. But she had never
expressed anything except enthusiastic interest in the forthcoming trip.
She began to work the bellows steadily, neither too fast nor too slow,
and the smell of the hot charcoal in the forge was a good thing.
With a pair of iron tongs, Joe held the mule shoe he was fashioning in
the glowing charcoal until the shoe partook of the fire's color. Still
gripping it with the tongs, a blacksmith's maul in his right hand, Joe
shaped the shoe on the anvil.
Some people didn't care how they shoed their mules; they simply nailed
shoes on and let the hoofs grow out to fit them. Joe had never believed
in such slipshod methods. He gave painstaking consideration to the
temper and weight of the shoe, and the conformation of the hoof it was
to fit. Correctly shod draft animals did not go lame easily and they
worked harder because they were comfortable. Joe trusted no one else to
shoe his mules for him.
He looked critically at the shoe, then reheated it and gave it a
slightly wider curve. The mule's hoofs were nearly alike. But they were
not exactly alike and each shoe must be designed accordingly. Finally
satisfied, Joe plunged the shoe in a pail of tepid water and approached
the mule.
The mare mule, at shoeing time, literally went wild. She became so
terrified that she had to be dragged to the forge and roped and hog-tied
after she was there to keep her from injuring the blacksmith. But the
horse had a streak of vanity that took peculiar directions. He was proud
to wear new shoes, and after they were nailed on he spent hours walking
about to test them. Usually a full day passed before he no longer gave
his new-shod hoofs any attention.
When Joe approached, the mule lifted his rear hoof voluntarily and held
it. He did it gracefully, taking all his weight on his other three legs
and never at any time endangering Joe. Joe tried the shoe, and when he
saw that it was a perfect fit he nailed it on. The mule swung his head
to look approvingly at his hoof. Joe rose and wiped the sweat from his
forehead.
Everything except the mule shoeing was done. The wagon had a new box,
and all the parts that had seemed even slightly weak or worn had been
replaced. They knew exactly what they were going to take along, and
among other things they were going to take six of Emma's best hens plus
a rooster, and there was a place for everything. New, double-thick
canvas covered the wagon, and Joe had even arranged a canvas drop
curtain so that, if it were necessary to camp inside, the male and
female members of his family could have their own compartments. Joe had
ninety-eight dollars in cash, and an uneasy feeling that it would not be
nearly enough. But he did not know how to get any more.
As soon as Pete Domley came--and he should be here any minute--they
could rope and shoe the mare mule. There they could start, and the
sooner the better. Joe had dreamed of the Oregon Trail so many times
that, if he wasn't on it soon, he felt that he would begin braying like
a mule himself. He smiled at his daughter.
"I think we'll leave tomorrow morning, Bobby."
"Oh, Daddy! May I stay with Marcia tonight?"
Her lambent eyes glowed with pure delight, and Joe noted with approval
the fire in her voice. Though it was not an unmixed blessing, Barbara
felt all of everything that touched her. Her temperament, Joe felt, was
not unlike the glowing fire in the forge. He said,
"It's all right with me if it is with your mother."
"Are you happy, Daddy?"
"Sure am! I--What the dickens!"
Pete Domley's white horse had appeared on the path leading from Tenney's
Crossing, but Pete was not alone on the horse. Ahead of him, clutched
firmly in Pete's strong hands, was Tad. Pete was also packing a rifle,
something he seldom did unless he intended to go hunting. He reined his
horse to a halt beside Joe.
"I figure this is your business!"
"What's my business?"