The Jumping-Off Place

by Marian Hurd McNeely

  Becky turned her face as Mrs. Kenniker’s scissors slashed through the gown. “I’ll be putting the house in order,” she said.

  She covered the bed with the sheet, and laid a clean white cloth over the staring red pillows. She put away the food, and stretched a white towel across the table. She washed the window, tacked mosquito bar on the outside, and hung the snowy curtains from the sash before she sat down to her sewing. Mrs. Oleson sat on the stool, not offering to help, and looking at her hands with unseeing eyes. When the gown was finished the two visitors dressed the baby, pulled on the clean white stockings, and smoothed the yellow curls. Then they lifted the little body and laid it on the white bed, covered with the new white mosquito bar, while they put the door back on its hinges and drove out the flies.

  One by one the neighbors began to drift in. They brought supplies with them, butter and ham and eggs, baked beans, cake and doughnuts. They brought offers of help, of mourning bonnets, of wagons for the funeral. Three men came with spades to dig the little grave in the soil of the Oleson claim. A neighboring homesteader started out on a ten-mile trip to engage a preacher. Another drove to Winner to send the sad news to the boy down near the Keya Paha River. When, at night-fall, the father drove up the trail with a tow-headed boy on the seat beside him, and a little coffin wrapped in burlap on the wagon floor, there were willing hands waiting to carry in the light burden, to unharness and feed the horses, and to do the evening chores.

  Becky helped with the supper before she left. Then she went to take a last look at the dead child. In the only white bed in which she had ever been laid the baby was sleeping, her chubby little hands curled against the lace and the pink ribbons, her yellow curls touching the pink roses. Beside the coffin stood Ole, his long wrists hanging from his flannel shirt, his pale blue eyes looking down at his little sister. He glanced at his mother, sitting humped over on the low stool. “Come here, Ma,” he urged.

  Mrs. Oleson did not answer. She twisted her gnarled, brown hands on her knees and kept her eyes on them.

  “Come on,” he said awkwardly. “You ought to see how sweet she’s sleepin’.”

  The mother slowly left her stool, and looked down at the little girl. Her eyes traveled over the whiteness and daintiness below. Then the tears came, and sobs shook her work-worn frame. “That’s the way she should ’a’ been kept, always,” she said.

  BECKY rode back home over the quiet prairie. It was still light, for the days were long in Dakota, but it was the last magical moment of it. Suddenly, like a miracle, the cap of darkness would fall and it would be night. The mourning dove sent out its sad note that always heralded twilight; the little creatures of the grass filled the air with melancholy music. It was as though the prairie itself was sorrowing for the poor Olesons. And the girl again felt that kinship with the country that had been so strong in the spring. It might threaten her, it might turn against her, but the lure was still there. It was the same lure that had brought the Olesons, the Kennikers, the Wubbers. The prairie was her prairie, and the people her people, all held together by the strange bond of needing each other.

  THE Linville children, much excited, met her at the end of the trail with a chorus of “Let me tell her!”

  “We’ve had visitors,” said Dick.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver,” yelled Joan and Phil.

  “They stayed all afternoon,” said Phil.

  “They’ve just gone now,” added Joan.

  “Too bad I missed them,” said Becky, trying to enter into the holiday spirit. “What did they come for? Just a friendly visit?”

  “Wanted to know about the school. They’ve got a teacher for Crane Hollow.”

  Becky’s heart fell. Then Mrs. Kenniker’s words had been true. How would they live now! “I know,” she said quietly.

  “How did you know?”

  “Mrs. Kenniker told me when we rode over to Oleson’s this morning.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell us at noon, instead of stealing away like the Arabs?”

  “I hoped she was mistaken. I still had a faint hope that I might get it; Mr. Cleaver seemed so sure about it when he talked to you.”

  “What on earth are you talking about? Why, you are going to get it!”

  “I?” inquired Becky aghast.

  “Yes, you. Mrs. Kenniker must have been pretty poor at putting the news across! The school commissioner, Mr. Peters, practically promised you the place. You’re to drive to Winner to see him Monday, but he says he’s only had one other applicant for the job, and that’s the oldest Welp boy, the one that lives with his uncle. And Mr. Cleaver said he thought, if you set your mind to it, you might make a better impression than Chris Welp.”

  Becky got out of the saddle and gave Joan a hug of joy. “I’m too happy for words,” she said. “Now let winter come!”

  “Mr. Cleaver seemed as tickled as we were,” said Dick. “He said that you were the very one for the place. I told him that the Welp kids would probably make trouble for you if you ran against their brother for teacher, and he said if they raised a rumpus in school you were to send them home and make them go to the school board for re-instatement. The board are all homesteaders around here and hate the Welps. That’s why the school commissioner was so sure you’d get the job.”

  Becky went into the house with the children, while Dick put up Job for the night.

  “Did you like Mrs. Cleaver?” she asked. “What kind of woman is she?”

  “Swell!” said Joan. “She’s fat-ish, like him, and curly white hair, and jolly.”

  “An’ not a bit fussy either,” put in Phil. “She didn’t care a bit how the house looked when she came.”

  “Oh,” said Becky faintly. “How did it look?” “Well, it was kinda mussy,” admitted Phil. “You see, the Wubbers came over in the afternoon, and it was so hot in the sun that we came in here to play. We thought you wouldn’t care. And the Wubbers wanted molasses on their bread, so we poured some out of the jug, and too much came out. It kinda got on the floor. And then we thought we’d play that Venus was Pete Welp. We wanted Autie to be him, but he wouldn’t, so we had to take Venus. And we put molasses on her. We didn’t waste it; just took what was already on the floor, and spread it on her with knives. An’ then we took the big sofa pillow—”

  “You said it was too fat anyway,” reminded Joan.

  “An’ ripped open a corner to let some feathers out. Only more came out than we expected. An’ then we stuck ’em over Venus.”

  “What for?” demanded Becky.

  “Why, for tar and feathers. We were playing she was Pete Welp being sent out of Tripp County, like Mr. Wubber said he’d be, some day.”

  “Did you undress poor Venus?”

  “We didn’t have to. She didn’t have any too much on her anyway.”

  “Did you do all this in the house?”

  “We had to. We needed the chairs for the railroad train that we put him on to send him out of the country. That’s how the feathers got all over the room.”

  Becky’s heart sank. “Was this before Mrs. Cleaver came?”

  “It was just when she came. They drove up when we were putting Venus on the train. But she didn’t mind the looks at all. She just laughed and laughed. And so did Mr. Cleaver.”

  Becky groaned. “Where was Dick all this time?”

  “Over helping Mr. Wubber fix his harness.”

  “Oh, we ast ’em to come in,” said Joan with pride. “We knew you’d want us to. An’ Mr. Cleaver said: ‘What you playing, you young villains?’ An’ they watched us till we were done with the game, an’ then Mrs. Cleaver helped us wash Venus, an’ told Mr. Cleaver to pick up the feathers. An’ he got down on his hands an’ knees an’did it. Only some stuck tight. We got a little molasses on the red chair, an’ we never knew it till he sat down there. An’ then Dick came home, an’ invited them to stay for supper. An’ they did.”

  “I’m glad that ham was boiled,” said Becky. “What else did you have?”

 
“We didn’t bother cutting the ham. We had fried eggs an’ jam an’ bread an’ milk. Dick fried fourteen eggs, an’ we ate ’em all. They said not to make any trouble for them, an’ we didn’t. Dick served the eggs right from the frying pan so we wouldn’t have so many dishes to wash.”

  Becky gasped. Knowing her family, she felt sure that her picturization of the scene of hospitality was unerring. “Why didn’t you get our regular kind of a meal? There was plenty in the house.”

  “Because she kept telling us not to bother. I didn’t want her feeling uncomfortable because we were standing over the stove cooking for her.”

  “You certainly avoided that. Did she eat anything?”

  “She ate three eggs,” said Joan, “An a lot of bread an’ butter, an’ she asked who made that julicious jam. She said we were to tell you that she didn’t know when she’d laughed so much. And she wants us all to come an’ see them in Dallas; spend a night with them, she said. They’ve got room enough for all of us. An’ she left a basket of peaches for you and said we couldn’t eat ’em till you said so. May we each have one now?”

  THEY buried the Oleson baby the next day. There was no room in the crowded sod house to keep the little dead child longer. Dick and Becky rode over the dry trail on horseback. On a corner of the Oleson claim the neighbors had dug an oblong strip of sod out of the withered grass. The hole below looked large for so small a baby. The little white coffin made its last trip in the Oleson farm wagon, with the father driving and the mother and brother sitting on the jolting floor beside it. Ole’s eyes were no longer pale blue, but red, and he kept his cap down over them. His long fingers worked nervously. A few neighbors followed in a slow procession. They had not been able to find a minister. Mr. Oleson lifted the coffin from the wagon, and they all followed to the side of the grave. A meadow-lark called its six clear notes, and a gopher sat and watched. It seemed so terrible, thought Becky, to lay that baby away without a prayer, like a dead animal. Would no one say anything? She looked about at the shy, self-conscious faces of her neighbors, and saw that none would. Then she began the Lord’s prayer.

  The little procession filed back as it had come, leaving a dark mound rising above the flat prairie. Becky, who had feared to leave the children alone on the claim for even so short a time, did not follow, but she and Dick turned their horses toward home. As they neared the prairie dog town they heard a horse coming rapidly down the trail behind them. They both turned to look. It was Ole Oleson, galloping to overtake them. They reined their horses and waited.

  Ole had been so full of his errand that he had not considered his shyness, but as his horse stopped the blood rushed to his face and his tongue was tied.

  “Did you want us, Ole?” asked Becky gently.

  The boy ducked his head awkwardly. “Yes,” he said. “I got to tell you—I haf to say—” He could go no further; the tears filled his eyes. “I pay you back sometime,” he said. Then he wheeled his horse and galloped away.

  CHAPTER IX

  SCHOOL

  THE NEXT few days Becky spent in reviewing compound interest, trying to persuade her conscience that she was capable of teaching a school, and dreading the approaching meeting with the School Commissioner. But the conference, when it came, was anything but fearful. Mr. Peters was a man of convex profile and easygoing manner, who was frankly relieved at the prospect of getting any teacher for the Crane Hollow school.

  “There never were people who want teaching more than homesteaders,” said he, “and there’s never a place where you’ll find fewer teachers than in homesteading country. That school stayed closed all last winter because I couldn’t scare up a soul to take it.”

  “You know I have no teacher’s certificate,” explained Becky. “I was just ready to enter normal school when we came out here.”

  “Well, according to state law every teacher has to have a certificate. But a certificate without a teacher isn’t of as much good as a teacher without a certificate.”

  “In other words,” said Becky, dimpling, “I’m better than an empty chair. But do you think I can carry a school?”

  “If what your school record and Mr. Cleaver says about you is true, you can. He thinks you’re about right.”

  “He knows me as a homesteader, not as a schoolteacher. I suppose I may be better than no teacher at all. The course seems simple enough; the only two things that I’m really afraid of are cube root and the Welps.” She explained the feud with her neighbors.

  “You won’t have to teach cube root. And if the Welp boys make trouble, sit on ’em hard. Their older brother, Chris, who was brought up by an uncle in Bonesteel, wanted the school, and they’ll probably not like your getting it. But if they start anything you fire them. I’ll stand by you.”

  Becky repeated this conversation to her family. Joan, especially, seemed impressed. “That’s just what I’ve always thought,” she said. “We’ve been too hold-your-tongue-y to that family; just sat and let them run over us. If they dare to act up in school you do just as Mr. Peters says, an’ sit on ’em hard. If you don’t, I will!”

  “You’d better keep out of trouble, and let Becky fight her own battles,” advised Dick.

  “Fighting’s no trouble to me,” observed Joan.

  “Maybe I can find a way to get on the good side of them,” said the prospective teacher.

  “‘There’s no good road to a wasp’s nest,’ Uncle Jim used to say. Don’t waste time hoping for anything from the Welps but cussedness.”

  “It’s the arithmetic problems that worry me more than the Welps. When I think of teaching them how to measure a cistern I shake in my boots.”

  “Keep away from cubic dimensions, and stick to farm problems, where you only have length and width,” advised Dick. “Go heavy on reading, grammar, and history, and soft-pedal the rest. We’ll never give you away! And when you’re up against a problem postpone the lesson and let the whole school sing. Many a teacher has done that in my time. I’ll bet it’s the system that all normal schools teach.”

  SCHOOL opened on September fifteenth. As Becky crossed the bare fields to the little school-house, nestled in a hollow of the rolling prairie, she saw the homesteaders gathering the remnants of their crop and plowing under the burnt fields, with hope for a better year. Those who had been on the ground the year before worked feverishly, knowing how much must be accomplished before the cold weather set in. Winter was evidently a thing to dread on the Dakota prairies.

  The school was an unpainted frame building, with a dejected-looking flight of steps to its only door. Inside was a fat soft-coal burner, some old desks, resurrected from another school, a pine table, two chairs, a blackboard, and a map of the United States. Becky had come early with a purpose in her mind, and a large market basket on her arm. Out of the basket came new sash-curtains to cover the glaring windows, some gay pictures to be tacked on the bare walls, a pot of Wandering Jew for the wide window sill, an American flag to be hung above the blackboard, and a handful of books. Becky and Dick had spent a day cleaning the room the week before, but these little touches made it a cheerful as well as a shining place. The earliest arrivals found a pleasant school and a smiling teacher. Becky was quaking inside, and her dimples had disappeared, but she was trying to remember Uncle Jim. “Hurricanes always whistle before they strike,” she could almost hear him say.

  One by one they filed in, with books and lunch-boxes—the three little Wubbers; Phil and Joan (Dick had ridden horseback to Winner to enter high school that morning); Marietta, with her shining eyes; the two Courtland boys; four of the Welp children, Pete, Bill, and two freckled-faced girls; the Trainer twins; Johnny Lambert and his sister Shirley; and, towering over the heads of all, Ole Oleson, with his great hands dangling below his coat-sleeves. They were all in the lower grades except the two Lambert children and Marietta, and Becky began to recover confidence as she saw how elementary most of the lessons would be. The two little Welp girls seemed inoffensive children, and the boys, while evidently
on the defensive, showed no open rebellion. Becky spent the morning in grading the pupils, there was an hour’s recess at noon, and at four o’clock lessons had been assigned and recited, and school was out for the day.

  It seemed to Becky that she had never worked so hard as during those golden days of September. She was up at half-past five in the morning to get lunches packed, breakfast ready, and housework done, before she left for school. When she came home there was a hot dinner to cook, lessons for the next day to prepare, and the ironing and mending to do. On Saturdays she washed and helped Dick with the farm work. The children themselves cut the sad-looking corn, and tied it into stacks for fodder. They picked the few pumpkins and the cabbage, dug their scanty hills of late potatoes and the rutabagas, and carried them to the cellar. There were a few parsnips too, and some withered turnips. “All the kinds of vegetables you don’t like,” was Joan’s comment on their winter’s supply. But Becky gave thanks for the tiny stock that had been saved from destruction. It would help so much to relieve the monotony of canned food.

  “Wish we had anything to show in the way of flowers,” she said sadly, looking out at the sickly line of poppies and cornflowers, with a shabby Castor and Pollux mounting guard at the head. “No chance of taking a picture of the vines that were torn down, and the plants that burnt up. It wouldn’t prove anything to the Land Office except desolation.”

  “We’ll take a kodak of the house, anyway,” said Dick. “General Land Office would know we were establishing ‘permanent residence’ if he saw our awning and our curtains and the little trees. And some day I’m going to get a snapshot of the Welp establishment as I drive by. The two pictures will be Exhibit One and Exhibit Two when the contest comes on.”

  “That ole contest!” exclaimed Phil gloomily. “I wouldn’t mind living without things if I only knew the land was going to be ours. But if I’m going without ice cream sodas and cherries and circuses just to make a farm for Pete Welp I’ll be sore that I wasted my life out here.”