Caddie Woodlawn (25 page)

“I guess he doesn't want us to know what he wants,” said Caddie in a low voice. “He'd rather we made up our own minds.”

“I can't see Father going back there where they treated him so badly once,” said Tom. “Father's the kind of man who likes to do things for himself. I don't
s'pose that English lords mend clocks and feed horses and put locks on guns for Indians, do you?”

“They don't have to!” shouted Warren.

“Well, Father doesn't
have
to either, but I think he'd miss it if he didn't do it.”

“I think that Father likes to be at the front of things,” said Caddie. “He likes to be free and help build new places. I think he'd rather go on west than go back to an old country where everything is finished.”

“I would, too,” said Tom. “I'd rather build a new mill in America than live in a castle in England that somebody who'd died hundreds of years ago had had the fun of building. That's how I feel.”

“Me, too,” said Warren.

“I guess we three'll vote the same,” said Caddie, “but Mother and Clara and Hetty and Minnie will all be on the other side, and I don't know about Father. What he wants won't matter so much as what he thinks would be best for
us.
And, you know, he likes to make Mother happy.”

They climbed onto the raft and Tom pushed off from shore. John's dog rode with them, his head on Caddie's knee.

“Poor fellow!” said Caddie. “I don't know what John'll think if I can't look after you till he gets back.”

A cloud of gloom floated along with them as they went down the lake on that bright August morning.

It was almost four o'clock, and the Woodlawn children had washed their hands and faces and smoothed their hair as if they were getting ready for a party.

“Just practicing up to be little lords and ladies,” said Annabelle, who was as much excited as the rest of them, and even Tom was too distraught to answer her.

Caddie had gone off by herself to sit under a tree until Father should call her in to vote. She had closed her eyes, because the bees and birds and crickets sounded so much louder when she did, and it was fun to listen to them and try to tell from which direction each sound came. Soon, perhaps, she would be hearing English sounds. Suddenly a hot little hand was thrust into hers and she opened her eyes in surprise to see Hetty gazing earnestly into her face.

“Caddie, I'm going to vote like you do, did you know that?”

“How do you know how I'm going to vote?” asked Caddie. “We're not supposed to tell.”

“Oh, I could guess that,” said Hetty gravely. “You like it here better than any place, and so do I. I want to be an American.”

Suddenly Caddie gave the round cheek a kiss. She had not remembered to kiss Hetty for a long time.

“Hetty,” she said, “no matter whether we go to England or stay in Wisconsin, let's be better chums, shall we?”

At four o'clock they went into the parlor and Father gave them all slips of paper exactly alike. There were pen and ink on the table beside the big Bible, and each member of the family wrote something on his or her slip, dried it, folded it, and placed it somewhere in the Bible. Father and Mother had slips of paper like the children, and they did the same. Minnie took longest, because she had only just learned how to print and it had taken Hetty most of the morning to teach her how to print “Go” and “Stay.” But everyone waited quietly until she had finished.

“She must be writing ‘Stay,' ” whispered Hetty into Caddie's ear. “She can't do
s
and
y
very fast. ‘Go' wouldn't take her half so long, unless she's forgotten how.”

Caddie's heart began to beat more quickly. What if Minnie
did
vote ‘Stay”? Hetty had voted to stay. That would make five on their side! Of course Clara and Mother would be on the other side, and no one knew what Father would vote. Caddie knew that Mother's and Father's and even Clara's vote would count for more than theirs, because they were only the “young ones.” Nevertheless for the first time today she began to hope. She found herself shivering with excitement.

Father took up the big Bible and looked through it until he had found eight slips of paper. He unfolded the first paper and in a low, clear voice read: “Stay.”

One by one three more slips were unfolded and each one said “Stay.”

“Those are ours, I guess,” whispered Hetty, but Caddie squeezed her hand and said “Hush!” for Father was unfolding the fifth slip of paper.

“Go,” read Father in the same steady voice.

Tom and Warren shuffled their feet restlessly. Tom seemed to hear Annabelle's sweet voice saying: “Practicing up to be little lords and ladies,” and he kicked out viciously at a rag rug which his restless feet had scuffed into a roll.

Father unfolded the last three papers quickly and looked at them. Then he read them out: “Stay—stay—stay.”

“Hooray!” yelled Warren.

But nobody else spoke for a moment. The solemnity of the occasion still held them spellbound.

“There is only one vote to go,” said Father slowly.

“That one's mine!” cried Clara. “Give it here and I'll tear it up. I don't want to go to England either!”

“But, Harriet,” said Father gravely, taking Mother's hand, “you wanted to go, my dear. Are you doing this for my sake?”

“No, Johnny, I did it all for myself. We're all so
happy here, and we might be wretched there. I never knew how much I loved it here until I had to choose—better than England. . . better than Boston! Home is where you are, Johnny!” Suddenly she burst into tears and flung herself into Mr. Woodlawn's arms.

“Hattie! Hattie! My little Harriet!” cried Father, holding her close and kissing her.

The children stood around with gaping eyes and mouths. Stranger even than an inheritance from England it was, to see Mother crying and Father kissing her.

It seemed to Caddie Woodlawn that she had never known a more beautiful autumn than the one which followed. Goldenrod and asters bloomed yellow and purple and lavender along the side of every road, and swept in bright waves across the fields to the woods. In the woods the oaks put on their gayest colors. Every shade of red they flung against the clear blue sky, from a soft pinkish lavender to deepest crimson, and the silver birches trembled and shivered in their thinning gold.

Perhaps it was not really a more beautiful autumn than many others had been. Perhaps the difference was in Caddie herself. Certainly she saw things now with
wide-open eyes, and Wisconsin had never seemed so sweet to her as now, since she had been in danger of losing it.

One day the Indians came back, and John rode in at the gate and left his pony in the barnyard. Mother had just baked apple pie again, and John came in and sat at the kitchen table and ate. He had no words to tell them of the strange, far wilderness where he had been, what game he had caught, what leafy trails mottled with sunshine he had traveled, what portages and shining lakes he had seen. All he said was “John him back,” and ate his pie in silence. But something of the beauty and mystery of far-off places hung about him, and Caddie was glad that she was there to greet him.

His dog sniffed curiously about his legs and moved uneasily back and forth between his master and Caddie. To whom did he belong? To the little girl who had nursed his lame foot and fed and petted him? Or to the tall, brown man who smelled of buckskin and birch smoke and all the strange, wild things that crept and scampered in the woods?

When John had eaten, he took from his bag a pair of moccasins, decorated with the brightly dyed quills of porcupine, and held them out to Caddie. They were just her size and very beautiful.

“Oh, John!” she cried. “Thank you! Thank you!” But John had nothing more to say. He spoke in deeds. He took his scalp belt, grunted to his dog, and mounted his pony.

But now John's dog was confronted with a problem. He ran a little way with his master, then he came back and gazed, whining, into Caddie's face. Caddie was irresolute, too. If she put her arms around him and patted him, she knew that he would stay. She summoned up her courage.

“Go!” she cried, pointing to John. “Go with your master!” The dog gave her a long, questioning look, and then he turned and trotted away behind the Indian pony.

“And so that's that,” said Caddie softly to herself, and she was a little sad and a little glad.

But there were other travelers making their way through the wilderness to the Woodlawn farm. The circuit rider had turned his horse that way again, and he was thinking: “Baked beans and brown bread on Saturday night, and news of Boston again. Soon I'll be at the Woodlawns'!”

Still another traveler had been on his way for months now. He had no steamboat tickets; he could not ask nor understand directions. He only knew that his nose and his heart were keeping him headed in the
right direction. He was footsore and muddy and full of burrs. Sometimes he was hungry and heartsick and filled with despair, but he knew that he must get home. Sometimes he begged rides on boats similar to the boat which had carried him away. Sometimes people fed him, and he licked their hands, but he would never stay. Sometimes he caught rabbits or game birds for his food, and trotted through a tangled wilderness, lying at night beneath the stars to lick his weary feet and sleep. One day he trotted into the farmyard—so thin, so dirty, so footsore, and covered with burrs!

But Caddie Woodlawn knew him.

“Nero!” she cried. “Nero!
Our own dog!”
and she sat right down where she was and took him in her arms and rocked him back and forth, her bright head pressed against the dog's rough coat. Nero yelped with joy and cried and licked her hands. Everybody ran out to see them, and it was the eighth wonder of the world that Nero had come home. They fed and washed and combed him, and in a week or so he looked very much like the dog which Uncle Edmund had taken away with him so long ago. To the end of his days Nero was a sheepdog, for never again did anyone try to educate him.

When the circuit rider came again, Caddie saw him far down the road as she had seen him in the spring,
and she and Nero went to meet him. They stood at the gate and waited for him to come up, and a great many things went quickly through Caddie's mind.

“What a lot has happened since last year when I dropped the nuts all over the dining-room floor. How far I've come! I'm the same girl and yet not the same. I wonder if it's always like that? Folks keep growing from one person into another all their lives, and life is just a lot of everyday adventures. Well, whatever life is, I like it.”

The late afternoon sun flooded her face with golden light. Looking toward the approaching rider, her face was turned to the west. It was always to be turned westward now, for Caddie Woodlawn was a pioneer and an American.

Caddie Woodlawn is a real adventurer. She'd rather hunt than sew and plow than bake, and tries to beat her brother's dares every chance she gets. Caddie is friends with Indians, who scare most of her neighbors–neighbors who, like her mother and sisters, don't understand her at all.

Caddie is brave, and her story is special because it's true, based on the life and memories of Carol Ryrie Brink's grandmother, the real Caddie Woodlawn.

1. Describe Caddie Woodlawn. What kind of person is she? Give examples from the story that illustrate her personality.

 

2. In
chapter one,
the author writes that Caddie “was the despair of her mother and of her elder sister Clara.” What does this mean? What is the reason for this? What were the roles of men, women, boys, and girls in early American society? How were children raised? How are the expectations of men, women, boys, and girls the same or different today?