The last hour the Towers spent at their old home was a time of bustling
confusion and great activity. Joe shook hands with all the men, and
stood awkwardly while all the women kissed his cheek and wished him
well. The women gathered about Emma, and tears flowed as they embraced.
Joe gulped, more than ever realizing the enormity of the task they had
undertaken and what it involved. The people gathered about were the
friends of a lifetime, and living together had cemented more than
superficial friendship. There was love too, and respect, and Joe had a
sudden wild desire to ask everybody to go with him. He tried not to look
at the weeping Emma, and knew a lighter moment when he saw Tad, knife at
his belt, swaggering before the younger set. Then he saw Helen Domley
with Carlyle in her arms and turned away so no man would see the tears
in his own eyes.
Under no circumstances could Joe have described exactly how they started
for Oregon; he saw the over-all picture but not the details. He did know
that the mattresses, the last articles to go into the wagon, were
carried there and placed exactly right by an army of willing workers.
The same army literally overwhelmed and hitched the mules, and tied the
placid cow to the wagon's rear. Joe's four younger children, still
sleepy, promptly went to sleep on the mattresses. Tad, who had already
asserted his determination to walk all the way to Oregon, refused to
ride and Mike stayed at his heels. Barbara walked hand in hand with
Marcia Geragty, and Emma was in John Geragty's wagon. Nobody else was
going to Oregon, but the Towers would have plenty of company for at
least the first part of their journey. Not everybody could see them off,
for some had to return to their work. But most went.
The mules, overawed at being caught and harnessed by so many expert
muleteers, were completely tractable. They strained willingly into their
harness when Joe gave the order. Ahead, behind, and one both sides, rode
or walked the people they were leaving. One by one they had to turn back
and start in the other direction, and the last to turn was Marcia
Geragty. Though Joe could not be positive about many other details of
their leave-taking, he was never to forget the parting of his daughter
and her best friend.
They were walking ahead of the wagon, still hand in hand but not
shoulder to shoulder. They were not looking at each other. Suddenly, and
Joe thought that no word passed between them, they stepped off the road
and embraced. Joe stopped the wagon so Barbara could climb in, and
because he did not want her to know that he saw tears in her eyes, he
stared straight ahead. Emma came from John Geragty's cart to climb up on
the wagon seat beside Joe and the last thing the Towers heard from any
of their Missouri friends were the Geragtys shouting,
"Good luck, and God bless you!"
Except for the stubborn Tad, who obviously intended to make good his
boast that he would walk all the way to Oregon, Joe's family was in the
wagon. The accustomed routine of the youngest children had been
interrupted sufficiently to keep them sleepy and subdued. The others
spoke little, for Joe, Emma, and Barbara, had stayed up until the dance
ended. In addition, for the first time each in his own way was beginning
fully to realize that they were definitely on the way. They thought of
all they had left behind, and wondered about what was to come. There
seemed so much to wonder about. Yet everything they might expect to find
had only a vague shape in their minds. Emma reflected, as she moved with
the jogging motion of the wagon, that to wonder vaguely about a vague
future is in itself a tiring thing, more tiring even than a hoedown.
At the first night's camp there was much to do, and all of them too
weary to do it. But Joe did cut wood for a fire, and chain the mules so
they couldn't break away and go home, and tether the cow in a place
where she could find good grazing, and feed Emma's poultry. He was glad
that he had to do no more. Emma spread out some of the remainders of
last night's feast, but no one had much interest in eating. At the same
time no one regretted any part of last night. A rousing hoedown was the
right way to take leave of your friends.
The little ones nodded over their food and then, with the familiar faces
of Emma and Barbara hovering over them and the familiar arms of Emma and
Barbara holding and hugging them, they snuggled down into their places
in the wagon as if nothing here were in any way new or different. Joe
made a pallet for Emma and one for Barbara, and then he and Tad rolled
up in their blankets and lay down a few feet away.
Tad fell asleep in an instant, and slept so deeply that he snored a
little, something he did only when he was completely exhausted. The
occasional snort, emerging at intervals from the bundle of blanket that
was Tad, brought a smile to Joe's face as he lay beside him. That young
one was going to live this trip to the hilt, every minute of it. For a
moment Joe felt good that Tad was to have this tremendous adventure
while he was still so young. But the good feeling gave way almost at
once to a medley of thoughts that shouldered each other out of the way
for his attention--thoughts of possible accidents, and plans to be
made--plans that would be revised from day to day according to the
hazards and needs of the moment. As the land beneath them changed, they
would all need to change, to make the best of whatever might come, to
adapt themselves to each day's demands on them. The older ones would
have to fend for the younger ones. He thought of Emma and Barbara and
Tad, and his heart warmed at the thought of their courage and their
loyalty. And then his heart froze at the thought of the dangers that
might overtake them. And so, with this turmoil of feelings in his
breast, Joe Tower slowly, reluctantly, unwilling to leave his problems
unsolved, dropped off into an uneasy sleep.
Barbara looked up at the stars and at the soft depth of the night sky.
She thought there was something eerie and yet wonderful about sleeping
in the open with her whole family around her. Tonight we are God's
children, she thought. We are closer to God here, with no roof between
us and Him. How fragrant was the night air! How mysterious and beautiful
was the soft rustling of grass and brush, stirring in the gentle summer
breeze! The scratching of a field mouse, the chirp of a
cricket--everything was full of life and promise for the future. She
stretched luxuriously, thinking of great mountains and wide, wild
rivers, and of vast western plains where they would meet strapping
farmers and ranchers, some of them, perhaps, with tall handsome sons,
sons with strong arms and laughing eyes. She grinned at herself then,
and curled into a ball and dropped off to sleep, wondering whether the
grass would be as fragrant in Oregon.
Emma lay staring into blackness. Without a familiar tree or rooftop
silhouetted against it, the sky was a vast and awesome thing. It was
limitless, remote and indifferent. Her family was a few scattered scraps
of humanity, fallen down here to rest on the unfriendly ground under the
distant, disinterested sky. She twitched when a cricket chirped and,
shivering, drew the blanket closer around her. She wanted to go to Joe,
and to lie close to him, but she dared not show him that she was afraid.
From this point on, for the children's sake, she must be the woman they
thought her to be--endlessly resourceful and forever serene. Her eyes
ached with staring, and she hungered for the familiar walls of their
little room, or failing that, at least a familiar fence, a familiar
tree, a familiar anything. Then she thought of the babies, of their dear
familiar faces now placid in slumber. She thought of Barbara's familiar
grace as she walked beside the wagon, of Tad's familiar bounding and
leaping as he led his dog a merry chase. And she thought of Joe, of his
familiar voice as he talked to the children, of the strength of his arms
as he helped her down from the wagon, and of his willing, unstinting
devotion to all of them. She knew then that all the dearest and most
familiar parts of her life were right here, all around her.
Tears welled into her eyes, and she let them run down over her cheeks,
and she prayed that she would be strong enough and brave enough, and
that they would reach Oregon alive and well and that, on the new land,
they would all be happy and at peace.
By the next morning the passing of time had already started to heal
their wounds. With baby Emma and little Joe beside her, Emma chose to
walk for a while. Alfred and Carlyle, swelling with pride at being
elevated to a place of such importance, rode on the seat beside Joe.
Barbara danced down the trail, filling her arms with summer-blooming
flowers. With Mike always at his heels, Tad left the road for the more
exciting country on either side. He would disappear for an hour or more,
but he always reappeared, sometimes waiting ahead of the wagon and
sometimes running to catch up with it.
After three days and a few hours on the road, they came at last to
Independence. Everybody except Tad chose to ride.
Joe took a little firmer grip on the reins, and he felt a growing
tension that he tried to conceal. He had been born only five miles from
Tenney's Crossing, and until now, never in all his life had he been more
than forty miles from his birthplace. He knew Tenney's, Hammerstown, and
the other settlements and he felt at home in them. But he had never been
to a city. Joe smiled nervously. Maybe, if a man realized all the
implications in all the decisions he made, he would decide some things
differently. It was one thing to decide to go to Oregon, but quite
another to go, and Joe was honestly frightened because he had to pass
through a city.
He set his jaw and growled inwardly to himself. He had no quarrel with
anyone in Independence. There was no reason why anyone there should
quarrel with him, and whoever minded his own business usually got along
all right. But he had never seen, or imagined, such imposing buildings
or so many people living near each other. A little excitement stole his
nervousness and he said to Emma,
"Quite a place, huh?"