by J. F. Collen
Elizabeth darted into the room, screaming. Nellie tried to grab her but all she succeeded in doing was derail her path so that the girl floundered to the side, bumped into Agnes, and stepped directly on Agnes’s toe before dashing out the backdoor.
Agnes stood, spoon suspended in the air, speechless.
“What in tarnation?” gasped Nellie, as Dagobert, Egbert, and Cuthbert rushed past, brandishing popguns. Emma ran by, right behind them.
Emma? Acting like a wild turkey? Cornelia thought, grabbing her oldest daughter’s arm. “Where’s the fire?” she asked.
Emma stopped and straightened her bonnet, laughing. “There is no fire. We are just playing ‘hare and hounds’.”
“Let me guess,” said Agnes, laughing. “Elizabeth is the hare?”
“Yes,” said Emma. “She is most effective at eluding her cousins!”
“You may continue.” Nellie laughed.
Emma fled to catch up to her clan.
“Maybe it would not be much different, having a daughter, if my motley crew of sons ensnares her in their play.”
“Even Emma has been Chicagoed!” Nellie kept laughing, almost on the verge of tears.
Agnes gave her a hug. Nellie caught her breath and pushed the sadness away. The two women turned to face the next kitchen chore, grateful for each other’s companionship and solidarity.
Their last week together passed in a blur of wonderful family meals, camaraderie, laughter, love, and final preparations.
All too soon, Nellie stood looking forlornly at the lovely four-poster bed in which she and Obadiah had snuggled for the last three months as she tied her bonnet, and closed her bag.
Obadiah leaned in and hugged her from behind. Nellie reached her hand back and rubbed his head with affection. She blinked back tears and sighed, “We’d best be off, as we are both quite cognizant of my sister’s deliberations on company....” Nellie turned in his arms, sighed into his chest, and gave a tremulous smile. At Obadiah’s blank stare, Nellie elaborated, “Agnes wholeheartedly espouses the maxim ‘company is like fish, it stinks after just a few days’! I am sure her loneliness lessened that sentiment somewhat, but having visited and tarried here lo these past three months, I am quite certain we have well overstayed our welcome.”
She broke from his embrace, scooped up her bag, and ran down the grand staircase.
“I am certain Papa and Mutter shall honor their promise to visit and will commence the journey soon, once the weather turns to spring.” Nellie clasped her sister to her and stood for a long moment, hugging Agnes as if she could include all of her beloved family members, left far behind, in her embrace.
Agnes must have clung to Nellie for the same reason. At last she pulled back, just far enough to look Cornelia in the eyes, still hugging her tightly. “Their visit would be proved beyond cavil if that cotton-picking canal connecting us to Sandusky, Ohio had already been built.” Agnes shook her head. “I cannot see our seafaring father condescending to stagecoach, or worse yet, locomotive travel, for the last leg of the otherwise smooth sailing journey.”
Emma and Elizabeth cried and hugged their cousins. Agnes’ rough and tumble boys looked sad to see them go. As Armistead grabbed Obadiah in a bear hug, Egbert handed Emma a corn-silk doll. “I made this for you, to ‘member us by,” he said.
Emma smiled through her tears and hugged Egbert hard. “And of course, you shall always think of me when you gaze upon your lovingly mended coverlet. Don’t forget, I embroidered your initials on the back, in your favorite color wool.”
“You told me you mended that coverlet yourself, Egbert, as I had instructed you,” Agnes scolded.
Egbert looked at Emma and said, “Mother, that would have been foolish! If I had obeyed you, my coverlet would still be just a rag, with twine sewn through it, and I would have nothing to remind me of my sweet cousin.”
Silence reigned as everyone held his breath for Agnes’s reply.
“Hug Lisbet?” asked Elizabeth. Everyone laughed through their tears, as the brothers all rushed to hug the little girl.
Dagobert thrust a small, crudely whittled sailboat into Elizabeth’s little hands. “This is the one we was whittling together. Cuthbert finished the trim for us. See, here’s the piece of fabric you hung on the wood post as a sail.”
Elizabeth clutched it to her chest and cried, “Thank you. Lisbet keep.”
Cornelia and Agnes viewed these exchanges from their continued embrace. Nellie tried to blink back her tears as she clung to her sister, reluctant to let her go.
Chapter 25 – I Don’t Know Where I’m Going but I’m on My Way
Illinois River to the Mississippi River to the Missouri River, March 1857
“I thank the Lord we have seen the last of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. I grew weary of the calisthenics required to prevent concussions passing under each bridge. Further, I do confess, the stench of the foul waste of Chicago seemed to follow us all the way down that canal to the Illinois River,” said Nellie.
Obadiah grinned at her. “Most assuredly it did. Armistead expounded, in great length and on many occasions, about the sanitation woes of Chicago. Right now, the Illinois River flows to Chicago, connects to the Illinois and Michigan Canal and dumps its water, containing waste and discarded detritus and debris, into Lake Michigan. Recall the stench of that august body of water when the Lake was calm?”
Elizabeth held her nose. Everyone laughed.
Obadiah swung Elizabeth’s hand and continued, “As foul as the odor was, soon, the stench shall worsen. According to Uncle Armistead’s proposal, the Army Corps of Engineers plans to dig a sanitation canal, deeper than the current freight canal, to reverse the flow of the Illinois River. ‘Twill be a tremendous engineering feat. Howsoever, I am afraid the stench of that canal will be far more malodorous. The waste, now dumped in Lake Michigan, shall stream the opposite way into the new canal, thus transporting all Chicago’s sewage to the Illinois River, disbursing and distributing filth all along its flow.
Nellie looked at her husband in disbelief. “Surely this will cause much distress amongst the city’s southerly neighbors. I imagine sending this waste, publicized by its foul odor, down the river, shall foster grave displeasure, not to mention cholera! Will the town counsel seek the consent of those affected before commencing this feat?”
Obadiah shook his head. “Highly unlikely. That’s more fodder feeding the legal machine and clogging the district courts.”
Cornelia replied, “Chicagoans need summon my father to appear and engineer a replica of the Croton Aqueduct to ensure clean drinking water. He shall find an alternative source of potable water to Lake Michigan.”
Obadiah gave her a mock stern look. “Did you not heed our Engineer Long? There can be no superior strategy. Chicago will rid itself of sewage. The Lake shall be salvaged by this ingenious scheme—the drinking water will be recertified as pure. No need for further engineering. Armistead and his corps shall save the city from typhoid and cholera.”
“Ensuring everyone south of the city will ‘be Chicagoed!’” Nellie pointed her index finger to the sky to emphasize her joke, and giggled when Obadiah laughed.
“‘Way down upon the Suwanee River, far, far away,’” sang Obadiah.
“‘There’s where my heart is turning ever....’” sang Elizabeth in reply.
The little girls jumped up and down with glee.
“Let us sing, Father, just the way Grandpapa always sang with us,” said Emma.
Nellie burst into tears. Shall I ever be blessed with the presence of Papa again? Shall I ever again feel the joy and relief of one of his treasured embraces?
Obadiah leaned in and took her hand, while her daughters gawked, wide-eyed at the sight of their infallible mother crying.
Now that we have left Agnes and her family behind, I can no longer pretend this journey is merely a capricious lark, spurred by the need to provide aid and comfort to my lonely sister residing at the edge of civilization.
“Cornelia Rose, heed my words,” Obadiah said, raising Cornelia’s chin so he could look into her eyes. “We must view this as a grand adventure, much like life itself. Observe,” he commanded and turned her face toward the wind. “Survey this beautiful, pristine landscape. Our family constitutes a hardy little band of explorers, roaming far afield to discover the world. We are pioneers! We shall attain our destination. We have ensured our survival, nay, we have guaranteed a triumphal, successful journey, through our procurement, and now transportation of apposite provisions.”
Nellie sniffed and tried a smile. I suppose one could confect this interpretation of our situation.
Encouraged, Obadiah continued, “My dearest Rose, our wagon overspills with every conceivable necessity. We have not undertaken this journey blithely. I scoured every piece of literature available, from guidebooks and waybills to newspaper reports, and educated us about the Overland Trail. I read every government directive, every book or pamphlet and even interrogated every experienced pioneer I could cross-examine, seeking firsthand accounts of the perils, in order to map our safest route. We are exceptionally well versed on the journey’s hazards. Armed with this knowledge, together we shall surmount each and every difficulty. The emigration path to The Great Salt Lake City is now well traveled. Furthermore, the worst parts of both the California and Oregon Trails are from Salt Lake across three deserts and several mountain ranges to the West Coast. These parts we shall bypass completely. Now all that remains is for us to walk the trail.”
The floodgates opened, and she felt their immense love for each other wash over her. “My dearest Mr. Wright, your words tender the tenderest of caresses,” she said.
His smile acknowledged her word play.
Together we shall embark upon this grand new adventure, shielded by our love, strengthened by our companionship, sheltered by our numbers, ensuring our safe harbor wherever we might journey. She raised eyes full of love and trust to his. Together we shall walk in love.
“Mama, there is the mouth of the Missouri River! I’m quite certain. The first mate did tell me to be on the lookout for it. He said we would only steam along the Mississippi for a short distance,” said Emma, tugging at her skirt.
“Are we new home?” asked Elizabeth.
Nellie could not suppress a forlorn grin. “Hardly! Utah Territory remains a remote terminus, my little pumpkins. Why even the town in which we end our water navigation is hardly near. We next experience the meandering of the Missouri River, winding and wandering through the countryside like a bunny nibbling his way through the succulent carrot leaves in my garden.” She watched the sad expressions of her daughters brighten at the thought of a cottontail hopping through their Sing Sing backyard.
“We soon embark upon the leg of our journey wherein we carry our home with us,” said Nellie, assuming a cheerful attitude.
“Like the snails that lived among the rocks on the shore of the Hudson that we watched creep from spot to spot?” asked Emma.
Nellie smiled at her daughter’s memory. “Precisely. However, we shall endeavor an execution of our journey at a more rapid pace than a snail.”
“Where beds?” asked Elizabeth.
“We sleep in our wagon, utilizing the wagon bed as our bed.”
“Like oysters?” asked Emma.
Nellie laughed. “Yes, we shall lie like the oysters that abound in their shell beds along the mighty Hudson River.”
Obadiah frowned at Nellie’s simile. But their daughters’ attention had already shifted upriver to the city emerging into view.
“May we disembark in the big town of Saint Louis?” asked Emma.
“No,” answered Obadiah. “This steamboat rounds the peninsula jutting into the intersection of the two rivers just a little north of Saint Louis. We take this ship all the way to Independence, Missouri.”
The little girls let out small sighs of dismay. “But it looks like home,” said Emma.
Nellie realized the many similarities between the bustle of Saint Louis’s wharfs and the docksides of Sing Sing. How prescient Emma’s correlation. The similarities tug my heartstrings as well.
Obadiah tried to placate their daughters’ disappointment. “We can wave to Saint Louis as we steam past.”
Later in the day, propped on the ship’s railing, Nellie mused, the interminable Missouri does most assuredly ramble through vast countryside, just as our map promised, yet with little or no perceptible change of scenery.
Whenever shall we arrive at the edge of the prairie? She grew impatient to be on the next leg of their journey, like her daughters.
“Land ho!” shouted Emma with Elizabeth echoing the words a second later.
Nellie giggled. Land remained in view the whole journey. ‘Destination ho!’ was far more apt.
Now that the end of their water voyage was in sight, Nellie’s heart dropped at the thought of actually starting their walk on the rough trail ahead. Mayhap I can convince Obadiah to delay our foot journey just a trifle longer, whilst still making progress toward our destination, she schemed.
Nellie marshaled her arguments and approached her husband. “Obadiah, we shall never be able to procure the few supplies we lack at this location. Emigrants run rampant in Independence, like locusts consuming all the comestibles, according to the guidebooks. Furthermore, in conversation with the steamer’s captain, I perceived ‘tis but a short float further to Council Bluffs, Iowa. From there, only 183 miles to Fort Kearny, versus if we disembarked here, we would be forced to walk 322 miles to that same Fort along the Oregon Trail. Think of the almost two hundred miles of toil our feet avoid, much less the sweat and labor of the oxen spared!”
“Not to mention stave off the land journey, and its attendant difficulties and privations, just a fraction longer?” Obadiah teased her.
“The purser confided, there shall be no additional fare. Since we paid the maximum tariff for our tickets, the price already includes the entirety of miles the boat travels.” Nellie smiled back, thinking, my trump card, appealing to your frugal nature! You have taught me a more strategic way to debate my precious husband, through your example.
“How is that possible?” wondered Obadiah.
“We are now privy to information little known by most passengers,” said Nellie.
“I must re-examine the fine print of our ticket contract,” said Obadiah.
“Mayhap you should ascertain the veracity of the purser’s statement for yourself,” counseled Nellie.
Obadiah took her in his arms and beamed his warmest smile upon her. “My sweet Cornelia,” he murmured into her hair.
Mercy, the sweetest of embraces, Cornelia thought. “An additional thought, the Missouri River and this boat’s journey do not end in Council Bluffs. Perhaps we can save even further costs by sailing to this ship’s terminus,” she said, with a sweet smile.
“I have studied the map of the Missouri River. As you are well aware, its course meanders like a cock-eyed sailor on a weekend furlough. The river bends far too north to gain us any further advantage on our destination.” Obadiah shook his head and irritation crept into his voice. “I shall consider one leg more, and then no further.”
He stepped away to the business of the arrangements with one parting shot. “Steam all the way to Iowa? I shall heed your council now, but be advised, when we join our wagon train, only the menfolk make decisions.”
Chapter 26 – Stranded
Council Bluffs, Iowa, March, 1857
The two little girls bobbed up and down, chattering in anticipation of their foray into the new city as the steamship blasted its horn and docked at Council Bluffs.
“It looks like home here too, Mama!” said Emma. Elizabeth nodded. “Different home?” she asked.
Nellie laughed. “Yes, many different homes!”
People swarmed everywhere. The wharf was bursting at its seams; people, produce, conveyances, animals, and even birds abounded, rushing, and pouring in all directions, spilling sounds and smells into the rive
r.
They scrambled down the gangplank, anxious to stretch their legs on shore. Nellie’s daughters swayed on the dock, walking with tentative steps, trying to adjust their gait to solid, motionless, ground. She grasped each of their hands with a firm grip, determined to hold them tight amidst the chaos of the other emigrants streaming off the ships. Her daughters’ wobbly walking, combined with their intimidation at the teeming throngs of people, ensured they stayed glued to Nellie’s side.
When the steamboat sounded the three short whistles advertising its impending departure, Nellie’s heart sank. At least the ship flags, flapping noisily in the wind, are waving goodbye. Lord, help me! The last vestige of all I have known, the steamboat, cruises on ahead, leaving me stranded at the edge of civilization.
Nellie deliberately turned her back on the departing steamboat that served as their home for the past week. She fixed her gaze on the bustle of activity on the wharf at Council Bluffs. Pshaw. I clutched this boat trip, clinging to it like a life preserver, as long as I was able. I must acclimate myself to the next phase of our journey, finding consolation in my current surroundings.
The dock teamed with the usual seafaring activity; sailors swabbed decks, day laborers unloaded cargo, farmers carted vegetables, and merchants bartered. I must embrace this purposeful activity within my regard, for it hardly warrants the nomenclature ‘uncivilized.’ In addition to these familiar sights and sounds of the river’s edge, hawkers solicited members for wagon train companies and touted supplies and necessities for emigrants’ journeys.
“The amount of malarkey thrown about here on poor unsuspecting folk, hoping for a better life, is simply unconscionable,” Obadiah said in Nellie’s ear as they rolled through the town in their Conestoga, pulling their horse behind. “We must remain firm in our resolve and ignore the bold promises of these outfitters’ salesmen promising easy journeys.” Obadiah shook his head, grim-faced. “It gives me pause to watch men beguiled by this propaganda. The gall of these hawkers, pledging hyperboles of wealth-beyond-imagination and verdant crops that bloom without tending in the golden state of California.”