Part 14 (1/2)

Her throat worked for a moment, then hastily she changed the subject.

”About the cow, Joe--I'm grateful to you for making it easy for Barbara.”

He said with honest surprise, ”_I_ made it easy for her?”

”She saved her tears for you, didn't she?”

”Yes. But--”

She said quietly, ”One of the reasons I love you so much is because you really don't know why a little girl would rather cry on your shoulder.”

She took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. ”Pete butchered the cow properly.”

Joe said, ”Well, it will be a lot of jerky and pickled beef to take along.”

She smiled tearfully at him. ”Who in this family would eat Clover, Joe?

I asked Pete to take the beef down and sell it to Lester Tenney. We can use more money, now that we're Oregon-bound.”

Joe scratched his head. ”Guess you're right. I couldn't enjoy the beef myself and we do need money.” Money. And provisions. A barrel of corn meal, Seeley had said. All the eatables they could carry.

”There's a lot of planning to do,” he said to Emma.

”A lot of planning,” she echoed, nodding, with an effort at crisp composure.

Go to Independence, Grandpa Seeley had told him. Get on the Oregon Trail and use common sense. It had all seemed so simple, but there was more to it than that. For instance, though they probably could camp beside the wagon much of the time, suppose there were stormy nights and they had to sleep inside? Provision would have to be made for it. The wagon itself would have to receive a thorough checking, with faulty parts replaced.

The box would almost surely have to be built higher, and a canvas cover fitted tightly. Every item that went along, from the smallest to the largest, would have to have its own place. All of it had to be planned, and Joe had planned none of it.

Barbara came out of the room she shared with little Emma and Joe's spirits rose. At the same time, he was puzzled and slightly amused. Only a short time ago he had held Barbara in his arms, completely crushed and wilted. Now there was no trace of that, but only the sheer loveliness, intensified by excitement, that almost always walked with this girl and that imparted itself to whatever or whomever she encountered. She smiled.

”Why don't you go fis.h.i.+ng and do your pondering, Daddy? You won't be working the fields this afternoon.”

Joe looked gratefully at her. All women seemed to know all men better than any man understood any one woman. Emma knew that he needed solitude sometimes for thinking about his problems. Like her mother, Barbara seemed to know it too.

”Now say,” Joe said, ”I might just do that.”

Not for a long while had he taken the time to go fis.h.i.+ng, though he had often wished mightily that he could go. When he fished, he knew a serenity of soul and peace of mind that he found in doing nothing else, and it made no difference whether or not he caught anything. The mind of a true fisherman is not on petty subjects, and suddenly Joe knew that he must go.

”Hurry up, Pa!” Tad called in the door. ”I've got the worms all dug and the poles all ready.”

”I thought you'd gone to see Buster Trevelyan?”

”I did see him. He helped me dig worms.”

Joe felt that somehow he must be a very shallow and easily led person.

His daughter had suggested that he go fis.h.i.+ng. His wife had told him the same thing, though she had not needed to speak. Now his son appeared with fis.h.i.+ng tackle and bait. Joe hesitated, and Emma urged,

”Go ahead. You won't get any work done today anyhow and fis.h.i.+ng will be good for you.”

”Well, we might get a mess of fish.”