Prairie Hearts

by J. B. Marsden

  Carrie went about the business of heating water. She gratefully splashed her face and washed with a bar of lye soap sitting on the side table in the kitchen. After she removed all traces of liquor and horse, she dressed in the breeches and shirt, and pulled on her boots. She didn’t put on the good coat for Emma’s chores.

  Animals had no mercy for revelers and didn’t care that they had come home very early this morning and lacked enough sleep. The brown cow bawled at the gate and stared at her with large-lashed eyes. Five goats gathered near. She milked the cow—was Millie her name? Each goat took a little wrangling. She wasn’t as handy with goats, having only had a couple of them growing up on Pa’s farm. And his wife did the milking. She helped Pa in the fields. He taught her how to take care of livestock and horses, how to hunt deer and rabbit, and to fish in the local creeks. He taught her everything he knew about making a living on the farm, and now, pioneering with James, it showed in how she could help him. James and Laura provided a ready-made family.

  Even living with the Stratton clan, lonely nights dogged her. Laura snuggled up to James of a night. She coveted their close loving ways. James could be grouchy, but nevertheless he showed Laura his better side, coddling her. His stoic, unsmiling face always surprised Carrie when he kissed Laura, then later cooed and rustled on their new bed in the dark night.

  Now that they all slept under the same cedar shakes, she couldn’t dodge their goings-on. Nights when she caught them winking across the new puncheon table were the worst. They didn’t suspect she saw them or heard. When the weather turned warmer, she’d rather bed down against the heat of Laura’s milch cow under the stars as she swore she couldn’t take another night of them giggling. She’d be darned if she would sleep in the loft with the children, who kicked their blankets off and punched her with the sweep of an arm in their active sleep.

  Exhausted from lack of sleep, she blinked among these angry thoughts. She jerked her head up as she heard Emma call out for her.

  “I’m over at the manger.”

  “I thought mayhap you had taken upon yourself to leave before breakfast.” Emma looked fetching in her nightdress covered with a knitted shawl, the rising sun hitting her peach-colored skin. Carrie inhaled sharply.

  “Thank ye for milking, but I could have done this. You’re my guest, not a farmhand.” Emma smiled her winning smile. “Tea or coffee?”

  Carrie looked back to her work. “I’ll have what you usually have. I don’t want to put you to any trouble.” The whoosh of the milk against the oak bucket thinned to a trickle. “Millie was milked. I’ll finish with your goats in a few minutes.”

  “Don’t tarry. We’re having eggs and johnny cakes. You need sustenance for your ride back to Moss Creek.”

  Carrie watched Emma close the cabin door. An ache took residence in her chest. “What am I going to do?” Carrie whispered to the goat. She continued milking, shaking her head.

  By the time she entered the cabin with the two buckets of milk, Emma had dressed, and the smell of eggs frying in lard made her stomach growl.

  Emma laughed gently. “Get washed up and sit. Food’s nearly done.”

  Emma served her a trencher covered with eggs and cakes, and she sat at the dining table.

  “You went to a lot of bother.”

  “Pshaw. Eat up now.” Emma placed a crock on the table. “Mr. Mumford’s maple syrup.”

  Taking peeks at Emma at the fireplace pouring hot water into a pot for tea, she waited until Emma brought the tea and took a seat.

  “You needn’t delay eating. Your food will get cold.” She rubbed her head and groaned.

  “You got a sore head like me? I think I had a little too much corn whiskey last night.”

  “Oh, heavens, yes. We both reveled with the newlyweds.”

  Carrie wolfed the food down.

  Emma took ladylike small bites and glanced up. “Would you like more?” She rose.

  “No, no. That was enough to stuff a horse.”

  Emma sat back down. “I have more.”

  “No, thank ye. You have fed me a sufficient plenty, as we say in Kentucky. I…uh, I’m sorry. I eat too fast, Laura says.” Carrie felt her face redden. What a backwoods clod I am.

  “You eat like the worker you are.” Emma placed her hand on Carrie’s.

  Carrie grabbed her hand and squeezed. “How do you feel this morn? Still afeared?”

  “Your warmth kept me safe last night. Thank you for riding back and taking care of me.”

  Carrie still held Emma’s hand and she released it. She drank her sweetened tea to get her swirling feelings in check. She blurted out, “I like you, Miss Emma Reynolds.” By all that is holy, why did I say that?

  Emma sipped her own tea and looked directly into Carrie’s eyes. “And I like you very much, Miss Caroline Fletcher.”

  “I reckon we can go by first names?”

  “Aye, Carrie.” Emma winked.

  Carrie’s whole body liked to have melted.

  Now that the cabin was habitable, Carrie concentrated on chores that had received short shrift on the trail. James and Blanton worked on sheds for the animals that would be coming. She examined harnesses and other tack, cleaned them thoroughly of accumulated mud, dirt, and dust, replaced broken buckles, and cut out thinning sections of leather, sewing in new, thick pieces.

  She then sharpened all the knives and took apart and cleaned the guns. Although their pa taught James and her to clean their guns and reload after every use, that job had not been done to her standards. Twice on the trail, Carrie had been glad of the loaded gun. She shot a deer that kept them fed for several days, and a timber rattler curled up in a warm spot of sun.

  The next day, Carrie helped Laura make soap from ashes they’d collected. They filtered about ten cups of ashes with a bucket of clear water, then concentrated this lye water by boiling it, added a cup of tallow, and took turns stirring it over the dying fire. They added more grease until they were satisfied it would set up solid when cooled. Carrie poured the soap into molds about three inches by five inches and three inches deep. She covered them to let them cool.

  The next day they had several bars of soap.

  They’d run low on candles but found no one among their new neighbors who had beeswax to trade. Carrie took Josh with her into the timber on the south border of their acreage to hunt for bee trees.

  “Be on the lookout for nests, but don’t get too close if you find one,” Carrie instructed him.

  After about two hours of traipsing through timber, she spotted bees buzzing and alighting on bachelor buttons flowering in a clearing. She and Josh followed them for a good mile.

  “Looka there.” Carrie pointed to a sycamore just ahead swarming with a hive situated in the crook of the branches just out of reach of her long arms. “Let’s get some wet leaves and kindling started. We need a smoky fire to get at the honeycomb.”

  Josh ran off to gather the makings of the fire. Carrie carried some large fallen limbs for a makeshift step up to the crook of the tree.

  Josh arranged the wet leaves atop the kindling and used his flint to strike a flame. In a few minutes, he had a small fire going.

  “How’s that, Auntie Carrie?”

  “Good. More leaves. We need a lot of smoke to calm the bees. I don’t want to get stung.”

  Soon the fire billowed with light gray smoke around the roots of the sycamore and up to the hive.

  When Carrie was content that the smoke was doing its job, she balanced herself on the limbs stacked against the tree trunk and reached up into the hive. She grabbed two pieces of dripping honeycomb and handed them to Josh to put into a wooden bucket. She reached to gather more, but her hands were stung. “Ouch,” she cried. She backed up a second and waited for more smoke to surround the hive, then reached in again and handed Josh three more large combs. Her hands oozed with sticky honey as she clambered down from the tree.

  “Here.” She wiped the honey onto two fingers and held them to Josh.

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sp; Josh’s tongue darted out, looking up at his aunt with a smile. “Ooh. That tastes so sweet. Thank ye, Auntie.”

  Carrie licked her fingers of the remaining honey. “Let’s get to the creek and clean up.”

  They splashed and rubbed at the remaining stickiness until it had been cleaned off, then doused the fire under the sycamore.

  Carrie looked into the bucket. “I reckon we can get a few candles with these honeycombs. And some honey, too.”

  Josh grinned widely. “Momma’ll like this.”

  “Yes, she will. So will George, Sammy, and Gerta. Your poppa has a sweet tooth, too.”

  That night at supper, they all talked about Carrie’s find of the honey tree.

  “We marked the trail to the tree on our way back, so it will be a source for us.” Carrie smiled around the small table at the children clapping their hands.

  “Thanks, honey. Let’s get on the candle-making on the morrow.”

  James and Carrie smoked after supper. “It’s time to let folks know we’re in the market for animals.”

  “Kitty?” little Gerta asked.

  Laura laughed. “Yes, sweet pea. We need some cats. And some chickens. I need eggs.”

  “I need a few head of beef cattle to start my herd. And some hogs. A cow brute and a boar, too, so we can breed our own.”

  Carrie nodded. “What about another milch cow?”

  “I was thinking of breeding our cow and we’d have a calf. But in the meantime, another cow won’t go amiss. Laura, you could sell or trade the extra butter.”

  In the next days, she and James made known their need for trading for livestock to any neighbors they encountered. New neighbors seemed to arrive along the Illinois River every few weeks, although it was getting late in the season.

  The rest of May, the rain held off. James and Carrie plowed all the ground they could use this year. Carrie cursed at the deep-rooted prairie grasses. The plowing taxed them, and they came in each night tuckered out.

  Laura fussed over them, fed them extra helpings of beans or corn mush and the little bacon had they had left. With new meal from Moose’s, Laura now made corn bread and wheaten bread, both.

  “You two look like to fall over,” Laura chided one night. “I reckon you should hit the hay when the children do.”

  “Ain’t got the time to sleep,” James replied. After supper each night, he cleaned and honed the plowshares. Carrie worked until candle-lighting cutting prairie grass for hay to feed horses and the ox.

  Spring work absorbed them so much that no one got off the farm for the rest of May. Laura and Carrie planted the vegetable seeds they’d brought from Kentucky. They organized the kitchen garden into small hills and rows of beans, sweet corn, potatoes, carrots, turnips, and even some flowers around the edge. Early peas hung from stems and green onions had sprouted. They planted a small lilac bush they had dug up from Kentucky and kept watered on the trail, hoping it would root and grow.

  Emma stopped by one afternoon.

  “Anyone here?” she called. She came around to the gardens and found them all.

  Laura washed clothes in a kettle over a fire in the yard. Josh and George picked spring peas, and Carrie planted herb seeds and seedlings.

  Carrie looked up from her dirt-digging and wiped her hand across her forehead.

  Emma grinned at the smear of dirt across her cheek. “I have some seeds I thought you might like.”

  Laura sauntered over, her face red and her apron wet. “Looka here, Carrie.”

  Emma dug into the burlap bag and handed Carrie some packets of paper. “Fennel, columbine, chamomile, and lavender.”

  “I am much obliged.”

  “Oh, I nearly forgot.” Emma emptied the bag of the last packets. “Pumpkin seeds.”

  “Punkin? I ain’t never grew them afore. What’re they good for?” Laura asked.

  “The Indians in these parts grow them for eating, and Father planted them the first year we came. They make very nice pies and stews. You can roast the seeds for a good snack, too. Pumpkins grow very well here.”

  “How do you plant ’em?” Carrie asked as she took the packet and peeked in.

  “I’ll help you. You plant them in hills. They spread like a squash, so you can plant them to keep down the weeds around your other plants.”

  Josh and George left their pea-picking to see Emma’s seeds. “They look like reg’lar seeds, Miss Reynolds.”

  “Yes, they do. Have you ever seen pumpkins?”

  George shook his head. “What do they look like?”

  Emma knelt down to speak to the boys. “You may not believe me, but they are big, bright orange balls of squash. They have ribs down their sides. Some can be as big as ten pounds.”

  “Ten pounds?” George said.

  Carrie looked on her nephews with tenderness. “You wait and see when they grow and we pick them this fall. I think you’ll like them. I saw ’em once when your poppa and I travelled to Lexington looking at mules.”

  Out in the kitchen garden Carrie and Emma planted ten hills between the corn and beans. When Laura finished with the clothes and had them hung up on a rope Carrie had strung between the cabin and the new shed, she asked if Emma would stay for some tea.

  “We prolly should finish the herbs today,” Carrie answered, but then she saw Emma stretch her back. “But, mayhap we can stand a rest first.”

  “Carrie and I can plant these herbs now, Laura. With two of us, we won’t be long.”

  “You have done enough work, Emma.” Carrie shuffled her feet. She didn’t want to take advantage of Emma’s good nature.

  “Don’t be a goose. Come along.” She gathered the packets of seeds and Carrie followed her into her special herb garden. The seeds had all been planted just as Permelia and Gerta came up from their naps.

  “I’ll fix the tea,” Carrie said, pointing Emma toward the cabin. Carrie took the bucket to the creek.

  Laura fed Permelia and sent Gerta with Sam outside to play. The women sat and sipped the tea and ate some corn cakes left from breakfast.

  “These crockery mugs are very nice.”

  Carrie blushed. “Not as nice as your bone china, but they’ll do.”

  “Nonsense. I can see some artisan has put a lot of work into them.”

  “They was made by a friend in Kentucky as a going-away present for us,” Laura said. “I like ’em.”

  “Anything made by a friend is doubly blessed, I think.”

  Guns banged away in the timber.

  “That sounds like we will have some fresh meat,” Laura said. “James was happy to oblige the two men we met on the trace after the wedding. They seem to be friendly, even the Injun. This is the second time they all went hunting.”

  Carrie looked at Emma. She flinched. Even the thought of the Kickapoo sent her heart racing.

  Carrie answered, “I sent them, knowing James had hunted with Shawnee and he’d not mind.”

  Emma hated herself. James and Carrie invited the two men. How timid she was just hearing of them.

  Carrie walked Emma and her horse to the trail as the sun marked late afternoon. “Thank ye kindly for the seeds and helping me plant. You didn’t need to do all that. Can I come help with your planting?”

  “I’d enjoy your company.” Emma, not needing much help with the rest of her garden, beamed at the chance to have Carrie come visit her.

  “We got to plan out the next buildings after all the planting’s done this week.”

  “A privy?” Laura asked, her eyes rising with hope.

  “Well…” James hemmed and hawed.

  To James a privy was a luxury. Carrie went to Laura’s aid. “I’ll help with the digging. It would take a day, maybe. The soil here isn’t so much clay. It’d be easier.”

  “I need to finish fields of corn and beans. The wheat’s in. If you want, you can dig it.” James puffed on his pipe and blew smoke into the rafters.

  Carrie smiled inwardly. She’d said the thing that would sway James: she woul
d do the dirty work for him. She didn’t mind good, hard toil. She liked to sweat when it ended with something useful. Laura and the boys were tired of using the chamber pot, and the stink inside the cabin made Carrie gag at times.

  “Thank you, honey.” Laura gave Carrie a grateful smile.

  “I’ll do it on the morrow, then. My herbs are in the ground, the kitchen garden is done. The rains have held off and may for some days, now we’re in June.” Carrie tapped out the ashes of her pipe into the fire they didn’t need as much now that the sun was heating up the prairie. “I’m tuckered out. Good night, y’all.” She went to the pallet on the floor in her cordoned-off corner of the cabin. Things progressed on the farm. She felt happier than she had since coming up north. Emma came to bring extra milk every week, since Laura’s cow couldn’t provide for them all. She drifted off to sleep with a lightness in her chest.

  The next day, she helped clean up after breakfast. Josh went with James to strew corn and bean seeds in two fields. George, Sam, and Gerta were sent out to a play area under the large oak nearer the creek where they kept the small wooden animals that James had carved for them. Permelia cooed in her cradle. Laura washed the breakfast dishes and Carrie dried them and put them away.

  “Are you needing me for anything this morn?” Carrie asked her.

  “No, honey. I thought to make some venison stew from the last deer James and Laban and that Injun brought in, so we won’t have to dry and smoke it. I treasure fresh meat that ain’t rabbit. I’ll also start getting the honey and wax from those combs you and Josh found, and get some candles made.” Laura took the bucket of dishwater and tossed it into the yard. As she reentered the cabin, she said, “Don’t forget, Emma brings her milk today. I asked her to have some vittles with us at midday.”

  “I’ll be out digging, then.” Carrie found their shovel and proceeded to a clearing she and James had planned for the privy. Emma would just have to see her covered in dirt at midday. She went out whistling a little ditty.