Hogarth II

by Vicky Saari

  “Any signs of that darkie these two say they were chasin’?” asked the sheriff as he pointed toward the prisoners’ cells.

  Hiram looked closely at the two men inside the cells and said, “We had a funeral and a dinner for the family afterwards. The whole town was there. I have to say, I didn’t see a soul who didn’t belong there.”

  “Before you go, Ross, I got some quarantine signs here. I want you to take them back to Seth Hodges and tell him to put them up if you have any more trouble.” The sheriff handed several large posters to Ross as he started out the door.

  The two bounty hunters listened intently to the conversation, and as soon as the sheriff and the man called Ross left, one grizzly man turned to his younger brother and asked nervously, “Didn’t we fill up our canteens in that old well?”

  *****

  Hogarth watched Dave pull up in his truck and was surprised when the bearded man pulled out a camera and began taking pictures of him. A few minutes later, Charlie and George arrived and David explained that his wife was a teacher and had heard that this old house used to be part of the Underground Railroad. George and Charlie looked at one another with a blank stare. “What’s that?” asked Charlie.

  When Dave had finished his explanation, he asked if they had ever found any secret rooms in the old house. Both men shrugged. “We tore down the old wing but never did find anything like a hidden room,” George added thoughtfully. “The Missus saved a bunch of the stuff we took out of the old part, and they tell us there used to be a log house out in that field. I heard it blew down in a tornado years ago.”

  “There’s an old cemetery on top of that hill over there. The Mister had George and me clean it up a few years ago. You can go up that lane there and see it fer yerself, Charlie added thoughtfully. “Trouble is, most of the tombstones are so old, and you can hardly read them.”

  Hogarth smiled as Charlie and George watched Dave’s truck attempt to negotiate the lane to the old cemetery. The old path between the Hogarths’ and the Parsons’ had long since grown over. It wasn’t long before Dave abandoned his truck and walked the rest of the way.

  Chapter 21

  “Luke, I’d like to say I’m mad at you, but to tell the truth, I’m kinda glad you made me come out with you,” grumbled Job as he heaved another large chunk of coal into the wagon. “Thanks for the clothes, too. They might have fit a couple of summers ago,” he added wryly. “I already ripped out the seat and one shoulder.”

  “Well, what’d ya think of the idea?” grunted Luke as he swung his pa’s pickax into the black wall of the hillside. “You and me both seem to be the only two without a trade of some kind around here. I figured we could try it and see what happens. We might like it. Then, we might find we don’t like it,” he grunted as he lay down his pick and picked up a shovel and began tossing the loosened rocks into the wagon.

  While Luke shoveled up the coal he’d loosened, Job took up the pick and began swinging. “Well, it ain’t any worse than that stinkin’ tannery. God! I hated that place. The smell ’bout made me sick at times,” he swore as he drove the pick deep into the bituminous coal.

  “I wuz talkin’ to Hans Hamburg yesterday, and he said his pa had worked in the coal mines back in the old country,” rambled Luke. “He said the people in the cities used it to heat their houses.”

  “Do you think those steamboaters will buy coal? Look around you at all the wood. It’s a lot cheaper.” Job rested on his pick. “It grows wild right along the river.”

  “Well, it’s an idea. We won’t know till we try. Zeke says the coal works a lot better than charcoal in his forge. He has to make his own wood charcoal before he can use his forge,” young Hodges said as he swung another shovelful into the wagon.

  “Let’s say this catches on. What’s gonna happen when we use up all this stuff on the surface? I hear Hamburg say somethin’ about the men goin’ a long way underground in some of their mines,” Job questioned. “Have you figured that out?”

  “I talked to Pa about it this mornin’. He said we’d cross that bridge when we come to it. I think he’s gonna talk to someone,” Luke tried to reassure him.

  “Egad, look at you. You’re almost as dark as that darkie was at the Hogarths’. Did you see him out by the cabin?” Job thought aloud. “What happened to him anyway? He just up and disappeared.”

  “I don’t know. Pa said he got “spirited away,” whatever that means. You ought to look at yourself. We’re gonna both need baths before we can go home. My sister will never let you near the house lookin’ like that,” Luke said with a grin and went back to digging and shoveling.

  “How come you don’t take this to Louisville to your uncle? He’s a lot closer than Madison,” queried Job. “I bet he’d try your coal in his steamboats.”

  Luke thought for a minute before he could answer. “I kinda thought about it, but like I told my pa, I don’t really like what Uncle Frank does. I feel awful bad for Jacob and Priscilla. I know Jacob is gonna hate it there.”

  At the Hogarth house, Caleb stood by his barn admiring his fields. In the two weeks that Moses was there, he’d gotten more corn and wheat planted than he had in years. “It’s too bad I ain’t got nobody to help harvest all this,” he muttered to himself and winced at the pain in his chest. Lately, it didn’t take much to wear him out, and that walk over to the Hodges’ had about done him in. He hoped he wasn’t coming down with the fever like Jessie had. He sat on a stump and, without aiming to, his mind wandered to his old friends Opal and Minnie. It just didn’t seem right that they should be gone, he thought. In his mind’s eye, he could see Opal trying to protect his family that day he found them in the woods. His eyes wandered to the far hill, where Opal and Minnie now joined Brad and the Maynard family.

  He was still sitting there when Jessie found him. “Thinkin’ about Opal?” she asked as she sat beside him.

  “Yeah, and about Moses. I guess Seth must have made contact with the right people and didn’t know it when he went to Madison,” he responded.

  “Mittens told me how well you and Moses got along. You two got a lot of work done while I was sick,” Jessie noted.

  “Yeah, and I was just sittin’ here thinkin’ about who the heck is gonna help me harvest all this stuff come fall,” Caleb said and smiled ruefully.

  “Ever since I came back home, I been feelin’ like maybe you all did as well, if not better, without me,” said Jessie. “I guess I been doin’ a good job of feelin’ sorry for myself. Mittens even makes better biscuits than I do.”

  Caleb studied his wife’s face for a bit. He’d never seen her so uncertain before. “Jessie, as long as I’ve know’d you, you always been so sure of everything you ever done. What’s brought this on?”

  “I guess losin’ Minnie helped. Ain’t got over bein’ sick, either, but I can’t help thinkin’ about that Maynard woman and the things she said before she died. Except for Brad Parson, she’s the only person I ever treated who died. Trouble is, I was almost glad to see her go,” she confessed.

  “That sure don’t sound like you,” said Caleb softly. “Whatever happened to make you feel that way?”

  Jessie paused for a bit and then for the next half hour she told him about caring for the woman and her hostile attitude toward “that Injun.” “She didn’t want Minnie near her or her kids!” she cried. “I never felt more like walkin’ away and just lettin’ her go, but I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I did. So I kept tryin’.” Her sobs came hard and long. Caleb said nothing. He just let her get it out of her system.

  From the house, young Jessie heard voices coming from the hillside and went out to meet Brad, who was leading Little Jed and four-year-old Catherine through the woods. Beaming with a bright smile, she went out to meet them. “Ma sent us over to get some butter. She said you had plenty of extra,” said Brad.

  “I sure do. I was j
ust talkin’ to Ma this mornin’ and told her we’d find a way to use it up,” Jessie replied. “Little Jed, you know where we put the butter out in the springhouse. Why don’t you and Catherine take your bowl out and get a ball for your ma?” Little Jed brightened even though he had the feeling that his aunt was trying to get rid of them. It wasn’t the first time they’d sent him on an errand so they could be alone to talk. For the past two weeks, he’d spent a lot of time with the two of them, and it seemed like they were always comin’ up with some excuse to get rid of him. He loved his aunt Jessie, but he couldn’t understand why his big brother, Brad, was acting so silly. Abner had said it was probably spring fever. If that was true, he hoped he’d never get it.

  Brad and Jessie were watching the two children wander over to the springhouse with their bowl. “I been thinkin’, Jessie,” Brad spoke seriously. “Do you think if we get married, your ma and pa would let us live in the old cabin?”

  “Brad, don’t you think we’re a little too young to think about such things? Besides, your ma might kill us for tryin’.” Jessie stuck out her chin, and then followed after the young’uns to make sure they were getting butter and not just playing.

  “Heck, Jessie, you’re already older than my ma was when she married my pa,” Brad retorted.

  Jessie thought for a moment. “But what will your ma say?”

  ******

  Hogarth watched Dave walking back to his truck. “Guess it didn’t make it all the way,” he snickered. Then he watched the bearded man get out again and walk toward the site where the old cabin sat. After poking about in the weeds, even Hogarth was surprised to see Dave walking back carrying what looked to be a piece of an old log that looked to have once been part of the cabin. “I’ll be darned.” Hogarth smiled and wondered what the man was up to.

  Chapter 22

  By fall, peace had set in, and routine was restored to the town of Sethsburg and the surrounding area. Except for a midsummer rain, which put an end to fears of a drought, little else happened in Sethsburg as wagon after wagon passed through the town, pushing west toward cheaper land. The stage between St. Louis and Louisville still came through three times a week, which kept the inn, the stables, and the blacksmith shop bustling. Luke and Job’s coal business kept them both hustling, and they hired Hans Hamburg away from Luke’s dad to help them with the mine. Unfortunately, they’d lost their tinsmith and J. D. Clark, Zeke’s apprentice, when the fever hit. The two men just pulled up stakes and left, so great was their fear of the fever.

  Once a month, Jed had a load of new furniture for Seth’s men to haul to Louisville, to St. Louis, to Indianapolis, to Louisville, and to Madison. Brad, Little Jed, and Abner had worked out a routine where each man specialized in one step of the furniture building operation while Jed moved to the next. They had, by this time, learned to limit their works to simple tables, chairs, chests of drawers, and pie safes. Most of the tools they worked with were created by Zeke, who had accumulated a variety of wares for sale in his shop. Most of his sales were to pioneers, who were headed farther west. Instead of fields of corn or wheat, Jed planted larger fields of flax to create more linseed oil he needed for his furniture. After the men had extracted the oil from the seeds, the flax fibers were then traded to Martha for staples and other grocery items. She used the fibers to make linen fabric, which she sometimes mixed with wool.

  Little real cash was available anywhere in the West. Like Jed and Zeke, most of Martha’s cash sales in her general store were made to people passing through, while she bartered with her neighbors for other goods. The Pritchetts made shoes and harnesses and often traded these items to Martha and Seth for their own staples. Fortunately, Jacob had built an icehouse behind the store, and during winter, the men of Sethsburg spent much time cutting ice from the creek and ponds, storing it inside the icehouse buried in sawdust from Jed’s sawmill. Fresh ice water was a popular treat at the inn, and travelers often splurged in the hot weather on a chunk of ice. The icehouse also provided a means for keeping fresh meats for short periods of times. Most of the meat sold in the store was hickory-smoked hams and bacon and salted pork, usually created by the Hogarths. Martha had turned the living quarters once used by Jacob and Priscilla into a weaving room, where Agnes Turner and Greta Hamburg often came to card wool and then spin it for her. She even enlarged her inventory to include buckets of coal and was surprised at how many people were interested in the black rocks. Firewood was plentiful along the road, though, and few people had the patience needed to wait for the rocks to ignite. Still, they sold better than Martha expected.

  Seth had tried to find the nearest kin to the four Maynard children but had been unsuccessful. For Cindy and John, Mattie proved to be a godsend. There wasn’t anything to do with housework that the girl couldn’t do. With paying guests staying at the inn at least once or twice a week and with Cindy heavy with child, Mattie took over many of the daily chores. Still, she had to keep up with her school work, everyone agreed, but Mattie wasn’t too thrilled with that idea. Meanwhile, Joe Jr. and Abigail seemed more than happy with the Turners and Hamburgs. Todd entered the eighth grade at the end of summer and had proven to be equally capable in the stables and the blacksmith shop. When the stage came through, he had one team ready to hitch up even before the first team was unhitched. Near the end of summer, the two older children were surprised when Mr. Hodges came to see them saying he had a proposition for them. He was hiring a new driver who would need a place to live and was wondering if he could rent their parents’ house to the new driver. He would put the money in the bank for them and as they each reached legal age, the money would be there waiting for them. Seth watched the two children as they pondered this idea, unsure of what it all meant. “You mean you ain’t takin’ our house back?” asked Todd. “It’d still be ours?”

  “That’s right,” said Seth as he recalled the young boy who had wanted to take over his pa’s job so he could earn his own way. “I’ve been thinkin’ about this for a long time. Your pa died while he was workin’ for me. I think he earned the house, and he’d want you kids to have it. When you get old enough, it’ll be there for you, Mattie, Joe Jr., and Abigail, to live in or sell it as you wish. Meanwhile, you can both keep workin’ the jobs you’re doin’, and they can stay with the Turners and Hamburgs, but you all have to finish school, or no deal.”

  The two children stared at one another, and suddenly Mattie threw her arms around Seth’s neck and hugged him tightly as she unleashed a flood of tears. Todd, on the other hand, took the gentleman’s approach and held out his hand to shake on the deal. “Thank you, Mr. Hodges. I’ll make sure you won’t regret it,” he beamed.

  At the Hogarths’, Jessie had made a full recovery by the end of summer. She and Little Jessie now spent every spare minute putting food from the garden up for the winter. Most of it they dried in the sun—apples, berries, beans, and squash, and put them away in baskets in the old cabin. They talked about the clay jars of fruits that Martha had in the store and imagined what they could do if they had something like that. Many things were strung on strings and hung from the cabin or kitchen ceiling, like beans still in the pods and onions. Little Jessie was the one who insisted on turning some of the wild plums and peaches into fruit leathers, which they would use as a treat for Jed’s children during the winter. With these, she worked the fruit into a puree and spread it on thin pans to dry near the fireplace or out in the sun. Once they had dried, she rolled them up in oiled paper and put them away in the cabin.

  While the women worked, Caleb stood guard over his fields, mended fences, and worked on his pigpens. There was a time when he enjoyed his solitude, but since Moses had been “spirited away” he missed the companionship and found himself wandering over to Jed’s place or following after the women. One evening, as he and Jessie prepared for bed, he confided in her, “You know, Ma, when we decided to move west, I guess I had this idea that the boys would grow up beside us and
stick around until my time here was over, but it ain’t worked out like that. They have their own lives and don’t really have time for me.”

  Jessie listened sympathetically but said little. Finally, she spoke, “Do you ever think about your pa and ma? I wrote mine a letter once, but I never heard anything. I don’t know if they didn’t get my letter or they couldn’t read it or if no one was left back East to answer it.”

  “What’d ya mean you wrote them a letter?” he asked.

  “Well, I started it right after Sarah started teachin’ me to read and write. She had me say what I wanted to say, and she wrote down my words. Then she had me copy them, and I put my letter in the old Bible and left it there. Remember that time Martha insisted we all go into the village?” If Caleb didn’t know better, he’d swear Jessie was blushing as she told him the story. “Anyway, that’s when I mailed my letter. Martha showed me how to take it to Mr. Smallwood’s store and send it off.”

  “What kinda things did ye say in your letter?” he asked.

  “Well, I jus told them we found us some land and about our cabin. I told ’em about Little Jessie, you, and the boys and asked how everyone was and to tell them we said hello. It weren’t much,” she answered shyly. “I been a hopin’ for years that someone might send me an answer, but, well …” She broke off without saying anything more.

  “I’m sorry that you had to leave your ma and everyone behind, but I’m awful glad you and the boys came with me,” Caleb offered. “I will never forget that first day here when you sat down on that rock out there and refused to move until I built you a house. God, I was mad, but I’m awful glad we stayed.”