“That’s what ever’body says.”
“Then ever’body must be right, and I want to farm on it.”
“You’re a Boomer all right,” Ratner said.
Silsby and Rebecca joined the group and were introduced.
“Ours is younger’n yours,” Esther said. “We got six.”
Fionna felt a stab of sadness. She and Luther had lost four children in an epidemic of measles fourteen years before. She considered it no less than a miracle that somehow Silsby and Rebecca survived the sickness.
Esther went on, saying, “Our oldest is ten and the youngest just a baby.” She sighed. “I wish they was bigger. I could sure use some help.”
“Don’t worry, Esther,” Ratner said. “They’ll grow up soon enough.”
Luther spoke to Ratner. “We just met a feller named Ed Byron. Do you know him?”
“Ever’body does,” Ratner answered. “He’s a sort of leader for us. Real good with words. We’re hoping he can stir up some action in Congress to get us Boomers some help.”
The new arrivals had attracted attention in the immediate vicinity. Five more people — two couples and a single man — walked up to the McCracken rig. The women gathered off to the side in their own group while the men stood around the wagon. They all had a bucolic air about them that made the McCrackens comfortable. The men were sturdy and sunburned, speaking bluntly and simply. The women wore calico dresses and bonnets, their hands roughened by their chores, and their faces showing the results of hardships brought on by a demanding life of toil and childbirth. Quick introductions were made, although Luther didn’t catch everybody’s name. All the men urged him to attend the meeting that Byron had mentioned.
“Something is bound to happen damn quick down there in the Medicine Bundle Grasslands,” the bachelor Tom Ralston said.
“That’s right,” Bob Ratner agreed. “It going to work in our favor too.”
“Dewey Harknell is gonna be taught some hard lessons,” one of the two married men said. He was an energetic short fellow by the name of Harvey Matthews.
Luther felt encouraged by the determination everyone displayed. The flat feeling of hopelessness he had experienced after the confrontation with Harknell began to fade away.
“Well!” Ratner announced, “We better let the McCrackens get set up and make theyselves to home.”
Harvey Matthews said, “We’ll see you at the meeting, Mr. McCracken.”
“Sure.”
After another round of handshaking, the visitors left to go back to their own camps. The women departed reluctantly, making plans to get together while the men held their confab. Fionna was ecstatic. She smiled broadly as she and Rebecca began their unpacking chores. “It’s gonna be nice to have folks around again.”
“Yes, Ma,” Rebecca said. “Mrs. Ratner said they was some girls my age staying here.”
“It’ll be good for you to have friends.”
Over by the wagon, Luther rolled up his sleeves. “Silsby, let’s wrestle that tent out of there and set her up.”
The two began the task without speaking. They had worked out an efficient and effective routine for pitching the tent since leaving Missouri. Silsby jumped up in the wagon and pushed the big bundle of canvas while Luther pulled on it. After it fell to the ground, they unrolled the bulky item and pulled the guy ropes out to prepare for the erection. As soon as the poles and stakes came off the vehicle, they began setting it up. Silsby crawled under the tent putting all the wooden supports in place. They next pulled the canvas up to form a cone. After that they drove the stakes into the ground to loop the ropes around. In twenty minutes the flapping, grass-stained structure stood in the breeze ready to keep wind and rain off the family. Silsby pulled the guy ropes taut while his father went inside to check the bracing. When Luther came out, he walked around the tent.
“Silsby!”
“Yeah, Pa?”
“These ropes ain’t tight enough, boy.”
Silsby walked up and saw the slack. “I’ll tend to ’em, Pa.”
Luther cuffed him hard on the head. “You pay attention to your work! You’re too lazy and careless.” Silsby blinked from the pain. He bent down and hauled on the ropes. Luther growled, “Do you want this thing to fall on us in the middle of the night?”
“No, Pa.”
“Not only would it scare the dickens out of your ma and sister, it’d make you and me look like we was fools.” Silsby began checking each stake. “After you finish with the ropes, get the shovel and dig the drainage trench,” Luther said. “And do it right. Lead it off toward lower ground.”
“Yes, Pa.”
Luther went to the wagon and pulled the kerosene cook stove down. By the time he carried it to the front of the wagon, Fionna and Rebecca had gotten the food stores out and were ready to prepare supper.
Chapter Three
Fionna McCracken née Harper had known Luther all her life. The McCrackens and the Harpers had a two-generation tradition of friendship and cooperation that evolved from their family farms being next to each other on the Horse River in southwestern Missouri.
Their lives were simple in that stark environment and the families eased their mutual struggles through collective self-sufficiency. The log-and-plank cabins they called homes were without luxuries or conveniences. The floors were packed dirt, the roofs needed constant repairing to avoid leaks; and the furniture was functional and handmade with no regard to aesthetics. All heating and cooking was done in the fireplaces.
The ancient culinary skills passed down to the women from their female forebears provided them with the know-how to prepare adequate meals at the hearths. They knew what dishes could be cooked best by being buried in hot coals; the ones that had to be done in pots over low fires; and the special treats that were prepared slowly to the side of the flames.
In addition to the customary sharing and support in their material lives, the two families were in perfect agreement when it came to politics. They were pro-Union abolitionists, backing each other up during confrontations with Rebel neighbors. The McCrackens had Luther and his four brothers, while the Harper family offspring consisted of three sons and a daughter. Since Fionna was the only girl among the nine children, she enjoyed a special status. Luther’s mother had no daughters, and she particularly enjoyed getting together with the Harpers so she could spend time with Fionna. She made little rag dolls for the girl, and each year sewed her a new dress for Easter church services. This fondness between Mrs. McCracken and Fionna lasted until the older woman’s tragic death.
Both Luther and Fionna were the youngest in their families, but they had very little to do with each other because of the seven-year difference in their ages. Luther was a serious boy and he never acknowledged Fionna during inter-family gatherings. He considered the little girl silly and bothersome, preferring to roughhouse with his brothers and the Harper boys.
By the time Luther was eighteen, his older siblings had moved away. Besides looking for greener pastures to build their adult lives, the young men also wished to get away from their abusive father Hezekiah McCracken. The sire, with a bad temper operating off a short fuse, used his fists and belt to control his sons. He administered corporal punishment in furious abandon within his perception of disrespect or disobedience.
The only one who stayed home was Robert who, though a mature man, had the mind of a child. He and Luther helped their father run the farm although Robert could do only the simplest of tasks. It was because of his slow mentality that Luther suffered a heartbreaking catastrophe.
Robert accidentally started a fire in the house while trying to fill a lantern with kerosene. The flames exploded throughout the dry log dwelling, trapping Robert and his parents in the inferno. It happened so quickly that none of the three had time to reach a door or window to escape.
Luther was plowing at the time and saw the smoke from the field. He rushed to the farmyard in time to see the last of the cabin collapse inward in a swirl of glowing embers.
He looked frantically around for his family until sighting a burned corpse in the glowing rubble. He searched fearfully, kicking debris aside before he found the other two. None of the charred remains were identifiable. Luther fell to his knees, stunned by horror, grief, and hopelessness, paying no attention to the hot coals he knelt in.
That was how Fionna’s father and three brothers found him when they arrived at the farm. They had also seen the smoke, and hurried to lend a hand fighting the fire. By then Luther had recovered enough to help pull the bodies from the smoldering ruins. There wasn’t much they could do but cover the corpses with their shirts. Mr. Harper remained with Luther while his boys went to town to fetch the preacher for the burying.
Luther was emotionally stunned for weeks following the tragedy. He could barely function, but his natural stubborn pride kept him doggedly working at getting his life back together. He turned down an offer to stay with the Harpers, electing to remain on the property. He borrowed blankets from them, sheltering in a crude lean-to he built just inside the tree line at the rear of the farmyard. He also accepted the Harpers’ help in building a new cabin a few yards away from what was left of the old one.
As he progressed back toward normalcy, Luther began to farm with the Harpers while working his own land. He had never been a hell-raiser like so many of the other young men in the neighborhood, and he grew even more serious as he struggled to keep the family farm functioning.
He didn’t turn his mind to courting until he was twenty-two, and he found the object of his affection in the Harper household. Fifteen-year-old Fionna was now grown-up enough to stir his emotions. She was pretty and good-humored, and Luther enjoyed her company. He developed a romantic affection for her as well as recognizing her worth as the woman he needed in his life.
After laboring all day in the fields, Luther used the evenings to call on Fionna in the proper manner before seeking permission to marry her. When he asked for her hand, Mr. Harper enthusiastically expressed his approval, and the couple was married the next year.
When Fionna moved onto the McCracken farm she found the cabin hardly fit for a woman in spite of the help from her father and brothers in the construction. She didn’t nag Luther, but her gentle remarks about what she liked and didn’t like brought about an expansion of the kitchen, a better roof, and wooden shutters that could be opened and shut on every window.
Then came the kerosene cooking stove. Fionna had seen one in the general store in town. It was a two burner Acme Wickless Blue Flame Model made of sheet and band steel with a removable fuel tank. The height of the flame could actually be adjusted with a valve. Now Fionna could fix eggs and grits in a skillet, deep fry hushpuppies, and see to other cooking chores without kneeling down at the fireplace. Luther had been appalled by the five-dollar price, but since they’d had a bumper growing season that year, he could afford to purchase it for her.
The couple had a good life during those first years together. They genuinely cared for each other, although Luther was not one to openly express any feelings of affection. That didn’t bother Fionna, because she knew he loved her in his own way. That was a better marriage than most of her women friends had.
When her parents died, they found the Harper farm had been left to them. All of Fionna’s brothers had scattered, and her father ran the operation with hired hands during the latter part of his life. Luther quickly organized things so that the two properties became one large farm. This new system produced more than enough crops to feed them. The surplus was sold for cash money to be used for the few material things they needed.
In addition, they brought six children into the world, and their first tribulations came during a short but devastating epidemic of measles in which four of the kids died. It was ironic that the two youngest and frailest — Rebecca and Silsby — survived the sickness. The mother and father supported and comforted each other through the grim period, thanking God for sparing at least two of their youngsters. The dead children were buried and grieved, then the family set about to carry on.
Their luck turned bad again when old animosities resurfaced with trouble-hunting pro-Confederate neighbors. With Fionna’s father and brothers gone, Luther was the sole target of the embittered ex-Rebels. There were only snubs without open confrontations at first, such as the hateful looks given Luther when he went to town. Then remarks were made loud enough for him to hear. After dozens of these incidents, Luther’s temper snapped. He challenged one of the taunters and was badly beaten when three other Rebels joined his antagonist. A few weeks later, when he was refused service at the general store, he was forced to go to another town farther away for shopping.
Then the situation turned decidedly worse when shots were fired at the McCracken home by masked nightriders. On each occasion the family huddled on the floor as bullets ripped through the house, splintering walls and smashing windows. By then, both Luther and Fionna faced the reality that the situation was growing more perilous and it wouldn’t be long before one of them was wounded or killed. They could expect absolutely no help or sympathy from others in the county, especially since the local sheriff was a former major in the Confederate Army. They had no choice but to leave, and their property was put up for sale.
Fionna was bitterly grieved. She had gotten her home exactly the way she wanted it. They had gone so far as to install glass in the windows, and she had put up curtains for the first time in her life. Now they had to abandon the property and the four little graves at the edge of the woods behind the house.
Luther worked out a sale to his benefit through the local bank. That same night the family loaded the wagon, and slept on the floor of the house that was no longer theirs. The next dawn, they rolled out of the farmyard for a journey to a life of uncertainty in the Indian Territory where available free land was rumored to be for the taking.
~*~
Now, on the first evening in the Boomer camp outside Clarkville, Kansas, Fionna and Rebecca were cleaning up after supper. Luther McCracken noticed the men in the camp drifting from tents and wagons toward the livery barn near the edge of town. “I reckon I’ll go over there and see what that meeting’s all about,” he remarked. “I might learn me something useful.”
“The womenfolk is having a little get-together too,” Fionna said. “It’ll give me a chance to meet some of the other ladies.”
“That might not be a bad idee,” Luther said, setting his hat on his head. “I’ll be back directly.” He looked over at Silsby. “You be sure and get that harness mended, boy.”
“Yes, sir, Pa.”
Luther left the wagon to catch up with the crowd of men ambling toward the session to be held in the livery barn. He didn’t expect to participate in the proceedings at that point, but he hoped to discover what sort of people the Boomers really were, and exactly how they planned to attain those goals he shared with them. Fionna and Rebecca hurried up their cleaning chores so they could join the feminine faction of the camp.
~*~
The Boomer women also had serious business to attend to in spite of the less formal atmosphere of their gatherings. While the men planned their strategies, the females shared the difficult task of solving the various logistical and emotional problems within their social group.
Shortages of goods and supplies constantly plagued the families. Most of these were no more than mere inconveniences solved by the swapping and borrowing of household items. But as could be expected, there were times when sickness occurred among the camp’s population. Without cash money to pay for a physician, the Boomer females dealt with these difficulties through the sharing of knowledge and experience in a simple unrefined practice of ministering home remedies to the sick and injured.
There were no less than three experienced midwives available for the expectant members of the rustic sorority. In spite of the primitive aspects of the camp environment, the wives were still kept pregnant by their men. The more children a couple had, the better their old age would be. A man could only muscle a mule
- or horse-drawn plow, plant seed, and harvest crops for so many years before it became a physical impossibility. Then he would need the support and help of several children as he moved into the frailty of the final years of his life. The wives, if they survived, reached old age long before their husbands. At least half the men in the camp were with second spouses, the first having succumbed to childbirth, illness, or exhaustion years before.
The women and girls had plenty of chores to keep them busy, and they didn’t mind the lop-sided division of camp labor. As far as the women were concerned, the life was not too bad. Boomer society sisterhood was much better than being alone in an isolated sod cabin with nothing but kids and the howling wind to keep them company. Out on the farms, the men got some respite from the boredom by going out to work in the fields, or making trips to town on errands. While there, of course, they enjoyed a few drinks with their friends in the local saloons.
The personal help and encouragement in the Boomer camp eased the frustration and despondency many of the women felt at times. These emotional problems needed the understanding of other females. It was something their husbands could never provide. Fionna happily discovered that this system of propping each other up and the generous lending of emotional support had been going on for some time. This is what kept the internal machinations of the community running smoothly in spite of the constant changes in the population.
The men’s situation was in direct opposition to that of the women’s.
The males were decidedly less effective in organization and accomplishments. Their rowdy meetings always evolved into uneventful episodes of complaining, recommendations, and angry shouting. Most of these disturbances were driven by masculine egos and a collective need to control.
While Luther stood at the edge of the crowd at that first meeting, he noticed the men, all chewing or smoking tobacco, were grouped in factions and cliques. He listened patiently to two hours of complaints and suggestions by the camp’s males. His spirits plummeted with each spate of rhetoric that didn’t come close to solving the problem of how and when to move onto the Medicine Bundle Grasslands. After a couple of hours of jabbering, all the business had been discussed to the point of a stalemate.
Medicine Bundle Page 3