The Quilt Walk (10 page)

Ma shook her head. “I ought to make my own, to punish myself for my vanity.”

“But I should love to do it for you. You have been such good neighbors to Owen and me. And I would enjoy a change from the embroidery. I even have the fabric for a sunbonnet, a dark blue that would flatter your eyes. Please allow me.”

At home, Ma would never have let anyone do her sewing for her, and I was afraid she might think Mrs. Bonner’s work wasn’t up to her standards. But I could tell that Mrs. Bonner was trying to be nice, because her husband was not. He’d broken our hammer, and now he was letting Pa mend the wheel.

“I wouldn’t want to put you to the trouble,” Ma said at last, and I knew Mrs. Bonner had won.

“No trouble at all. I’d welcome the work.”

The wagon wheel was mended and Mr. Bonner yelled to his wife to stop gabbing and get into the wagon. He helped Mrs. Bonner onto the seat, but maybe that was because we were watching him.

“I do not care much for that man,” Ma said when Pa and Uncle Will joined us. “Did he even thank you?”

Pa shrugged. “It’s a rickety wagon, and he’s too lazy to grease the hubs. I’ll wager this won’t be the only time something goes wrong with it.”

“Well, I hope that next time, you’re not there to help him,” Ma said.

“I was just being neighborly.”

“Yes, you were. And we had a chance to visit with Mrs. Bonner. I imagine she needs women to talk to. I suspect he lays the weight of his hand on her, and she’s harmless as a dove. Couldn’t you say something to Mr. Bonner, Thomas?”

“It’s not our business. Besides, he’s not a man that bears talking to,” Pa replied.

I wondered whether Pa would think Mr. Bonner would bear talking to if he hurt Ma—or me.

Chapter Twelve

FIRST IN LINE

N
ot long after that, we began to come across possessions that travelers had discarded along the trail. Of course, all along we’d seen things that had been thrown out—broken dishes, ripped clothing, and the like. But now we spotted more valuable items. Ma called them “leavings.” One was a large chair made of polished wood with gilt trim on the edges. The chair was upholstered in yellow silk with a pattern of bees on it.

“Stop, Thomas,” Ma called when she saw it. She climbed down from the wagon and made her way to the chair. “It’s been so long since I sat in a real chair that I can’t resist trying it out.” She ran the back of her hand over the arm, and with a contented sigh she settled into it. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “Feel the silk, Emmy Blue,” she said. “It’s so fine I have to use the backs of my hands to touch it for fear of snagging it.” Then she laughed. “Listen to me. I suppose my hands aren’t any rougher than the sand and wind that will destroy this upholstery in a day. Why a single raindrop would leave a mark.”

Aunt Catherine walked over to us. “This is finer than anything I had at home. The woman who owned this chair must have cried when she parted with it. Still, I wonder at taking along such a silly piece of furniture in the first place.”

Ma stood up. “You sit, Cath, and you will understand. It must have meant to her what my rocker did to me.” They traded places, and Aunt Catherine took her turn in the chair, resting her arms on the yellow silk.

After she stood up, I slipped into the chair and snuggled into the down of the cushion. I sat there as long as I could, thinking I could sleep in that chair. It certainly was softer than the ground.

But Pa said, “Come along, Emmy Blue.” Ma was already back on the wagon seat, and Pa was flicking his whip at the oxen. I had to hurry to catch up.

“It’s a pretty chair,” I told him, as I walked along beside Pa. “Why would somebody leave it behind?”

“To lighten their load. Oxen are strong, but even they have a limit. We’ll come across more useless belongings before we get to Golden.”

And we did. We passed washstands and bureaus, kitchen chairs and love seats, bedsteads, stoves, and even a sewing machine.

Once, we stopped beside a pile of bedding—blankets and pillow slips, sheets and quilts. The quilts were neatly folded, and on top was a note held down by a rock. Ma picked it up and read, “Help yourself to six good quilts.” She turned to Aunt Catherine. “She must have felt as if she were leaving behind her right arm.”

The two of them went through the coverlets. “Look at the star quilt. The corners are perfect,” Aunt Catherine said.

“I prefer a star to all other patterns,” Ma said. “Maybe that’s why I enjoy sleeping under the starry sky at night. Can you see the stitches, Emmy Blue? They’re as fine as grains of sand. Just imagine the quilter’s heartache at parting with them!”

The two looked at the quilts, then folded them and placed the note and the rock back on top of them. “If we just had a place, I would take the star,” Ma said.

“But you don’t,” Aunt Catherine reminded her. “If you took the quilt, then Thomas would make you throw out your own Friendship Quilt. I don’t have room, either. Surely some woman will have a place in her prairie schooner.”

As we walked back to the wagons, a man stopped to look through the discarded items. He held up a red, white, and blue quilt with stars and stripes and remarked, “This will do for a saddle blanket. I’ll just tear it in half.” He went through the quilts again and took out a second one. “This will go on top of the wagon sheet to keep out the rain.”

Ma looked at Aunt Catherine and shook her head. “God forbid the maker ever learns what happened to her handiwork.”

“No need to worry. That man’s a go-back,” Aunt Catherine said. We watched as he placed the quilts in his wagon and started off to the east.

We’d passed go-backs before, single men and families who had given up finding a fortune and were returning home. Some turned around even before they reached Colorado Territory, but others had been all the way to the mountains. When they hadn’t found gold, they were too discouraged to stay. Many of the travelers had painted “Pike’s Peak or Bust” on their wagon sheets before they left home. The go-backs had crossed out those words and written “Busted by Golly” underneath.

As we watched the man drive his wagon away, I asked Ma if she wanted to go back home, too. She thought about that for a long time and didn’t answer. Instead, she said, “I like the sky here that is so blue and clear, and the open space. It seems as if you can see a hundred miles.” Then she paused and added, “But I’ll always miss Grandpa Bluestone, Grandma Mouse, and my friends. I wonder if I shall ever have such true friends again.”

“You have Aunt Catherine,” I reminded her.

“I do, and I have you, Emmy Blue. Now why should I want for more?”

Pa and Uncle Will had gone ahead with the wagons, and Ma, Aunt Catherine, and I walked together, the three of us in a row, through the prairie grass. The animals churned up so much dust that we didn’t want to follow behind them on the trail.

“How is your quilting coming, Emmy Blue?” Aunt Catherine asked.

I shrugged, thinking that it wasn’t coming fast enough. I hoped this didn’t turn into a quilt-walk day.

“Show her your square,” Ma suggested.

I took it out of my pocket, pressing it against my hand to get out the wrinkles. Then I held it up. But I sighed as I did so, because I had used a dark strip where I should have used a light one. “I guess I have to take that one out,” I said, before Ma could tell me I was sloppy.

Ma took the square from me and studied it. “Oh, leave it be,” she said to my surprise. “Only God is perfect. You don’t have to be.”

I opened my mouth so wide at her remark that you could have tossed an apple down my throat without touching my tongue.

“Do you know that Bessie Fisk at home purposely made a mistake in each of her quilts?” Aunt Catherine said. “She told me she thought God would be offended if she made a perfect quilt.”

“Well, she didn’t have to trouble herself. She makes enough mistakes for all of us,” Ma said. She and Aunt Catherine began to giggle.

“Meggie, shame on you,” Aunt Catherine said, and laughed again. Then she took my quilt square from Ma and studied it. “One piece put in like that will only add interest to your quilt, Emmy Blue. Why, some might even think you did it on purpose. I would be one of them.”

I wouldn’t, but I didn’t say so.

A drop of rain fell onto the quilt square, and Aunt Catherine looked up at the sky. “Hurry along, Meggie. We mustn’t lag too far behind. The weather is about to turn. I believe we are in for a real rain.”

The sky was turning dark, and the air was suddenly cold. When I looked up, drops of rain fell onto my face. We hurried along, and by the time we reached our wagons, the sky had opened up. Ma and I huddled together on the wagon seat, wrapped in a quilt that was covered by an oilskin poncho. But still we got wet. I hoped Buttermilk John would call a halt so that we could set up our tent, but I knew he wouldn’t. He’d said we wouldn’t stop for anything but a presidential election. I asked what that meant, and Ma explained that we wouldn’t stop for anything at all, since the presidential election wasn’t until fall, long after we expected to reach Colorado Territory. “Your Pa will vote for Mr. Abraham Lincoln,” she added.

So we sat huddled on the wagon seat in the heavy, cold rain, our wet sunbonnets limp around our faces.

At last, Buttermilk John decided on a camping spot, and we climbed down from the wagon. The prairie had turned to what he called gumbo. I could feel the mud squeeze between my toes, since like the other children in the wagon train, I went barefoot to save my shoes.

We usually slept under the wagon or out in the open, but with the storm, Pa got out the tent, which was just a canvas cover supported by four poles. Then Ma and Aunt Catherine spread an India rubber cloth on the ground to keep our bedding dry. Usually Uncle Will and Aunt Catherine slept apart from us, but that night we all crowded together under the awning.

With the rain coming down so hard, Ma couldn’t build a campfire. “We’ll have to make do with cold biscuits and last night’s beans—and water instead of coffee, plenty of water,” Ma said. “It’s a poor supper, but we’ll fill up in the morning with slapjacks and bacon. That is, if it stops raining. I never knew such a miserable day.”

Lightning split the sky. Ma watched it, then turned to me. “Did you see that, Emmy Blue? The pattern in your quilt pieces will zigzag like that when you put them together.”

I didn’t like to be reminded of the quilt, because with the rain, I hadn’t stitched on it all day and would have to do twice as much work tomorrow to keep up. If the rain stopped, tomorrow would be a quilt-walk day for sure.

Huddled together that night, we slept well. Although the wind blew raindrops onto the quilts that covered us, we were dry because the India rubber cloth kept out the dampness from the earth. By morning, the rain was gone, and the air was clear. The sun was bright. Ma said it made the drops of water clinging to the grass shine as if they were the diamonds in Aunt Catherine’s ring. And the wildflowers that came after the rain were the colors of the bright strips of fabric in the quilt top I was piecing.

The ground was still muddy, but instead of complaining about it, Ma rubbed her arms and said, “My skin was so dry from the sun yesterday. Now it has moisture in it.”

“We’ll have to drive through this muck until the ground dries out, but it shouldn’t take long with the sun shining,” Pa said. He was knocking yesterday’s mud off the wagon wheels.

“At least we won’t have dust,” Ma said. She had set out our skillet and kettle as well as our water barrel the night before to collect rainwater. We usually filled up the barrel when we crossed a stream, but the water there was sometimes muddy from where the animals and wagons had churned it. Now we had fresh, clear water.

We were the lead wagon that day, and Pa hurried to hitch up the oxen so that we would be ready to go before Buttermilk John cried, “Move ’em out.” But as we were waiting to start, Mr. Bonner pulled his wagon in front of us. When Pa protested, Mr. Bonner said, “I believe I was afore you yesterday.”

It was true. The day before, Mr. Bonner had yelled to Pa that his wagon sheet had come loose in the wind and rain, so we’d pulled out of line to help him. But as it turned out, the cover was firmly attached, and Mr. Bonner had pushed ahead of us. It was late in the day, and Pa hadn’t said anything.

Now Pa looked at Ma before he replied. Ma didn’t like confrontations, and usually said to let things be. But she had a determined look on her face now, just like Pa, and she nodded once.

“That was before you crowded in,” Pa told Mr. Bonner.

“You telling me this ain’t my place?” Mr. Bonner had a mean look on his face.

“I’m telling you I’m in the lead today. Your place is behind me,” Pa said.

Ma clutched my hand, and I was sorry Uncle Will and Aunt Catherine weren’t close by. They had been the lead wagon the day before, so now it was their turn to bring up the rear. They were all the way at the end of the line of wagons.

“I say I’m in the lead, and I’m staying here, ’less you want to fight me for it,” Mr. Bonner shouted.

“Owen,” Mrs. Bonner said, so softly I could barely hear her. “I’m afraid Mr. Hatchett is right. Our position is behind him.”