Part 26 (1/2)
”Missed,” Joe said, and he took refuge in Tad's alibi. ”They weren't very big anyhow.”
”It's nothing,” she said, and Joe thought he detected a catch in her voice. ”There'll be other opportunities. You come and have your suppers now.”
She had kept their plates warm near the dying fire, and she gave Tad one. The youngster stood up to eat while Emma brought Joe's plate. He looked down at it, potatoes, biscuits, b.u.t.ter, jerked beef that they had bought in Independence, and a cup of coffee. They were his usual full rations, and he said,
”Doggone, I just don't feel hungry. If you'll put this away, it'll be all the lunch I want tomorrow.”
Tad said, ”I ain't hungry neither, Mom.”
”Now see here!” Emma's voice rose and there was a convulsive sob in it.
”Barbara wasn't hungry, Tad isn't hungry, you aren't hungry--! What's the matter with all of you! You've got to eat--you've _got_ to!”
Carefully, Joe put the plate and the cup of coffee on the ground. He caught her in his arms and held her very close to him, and she leaned against him, tense and trembling, without making a sound. His arms tightened about her, and he whispered so even Tad couldn't hear,
”My darling! Oh my darling!”
”I--I'm sorry, Joe.”
”Emma,” his voice was firm, ”I know it's hard. But we'll get out, and I swear that to you by everything that's holy to me!”
Her eyes seemed like live coals as she looked at him.
Miserably Joe said, ”Tad, you eat. If you're going to scout up more game you'll have to.”
Barbara, who had been putting the younger children to bed, jumped from the wagon to stand comfortingly near her mother. Joe said gently,
”Your mother and I have some things to talk over, honey.”
She said uncertainly, ”All right.”
Joe said, ”By the way, you take your meals too, Bobby.”
”I really wasn't hungry.”
”You'd best take 'em anyhow.”
He picked up the plate of food and the cup of coffee and led Emma into the shadows away from the fire. Gently he turned to face her.
”How much did you eat?”
”I--I wasn't hungry.”
He cut a slice of meat and used the fork to try to put it into her mouth. Her self-control went, and she broke into deep, painful sobbing.
”Why did you bring us to this terrible place?” she choked out. ”What right did you have to take us away from our home? You--a father--to bring six children out here into this mud--four helpless little ones--this--this horrible _wilderness_!” The words were torn from her, her whole body shook with the violence of her feelings. ”You were willing to take a chance, weren't you? But how about us! What if we starve to death out here! How will you feel when there is _nothing_ to eat--nothing for the babies, nothing for any of us? Joe, Joe, what have you done to us!”
Now the sobs racked her so that she could speak no more.
Joe had placed the cup and plate on the ground, and now he stood silent, alone, his head hanging low. He made no move to touch her. Under her las.h.i.+ng all his courage had fled. He did not know his own mind. Likely he was all wrong to have come out here. He was lost, and his family was lost with him.
She dashed the tears furiously out of her eyes, and then suddenly she saw him. As though she had been blind before, seeing only the children, their hunger, now she opened her eyes and saw Joe. She saw what her attack was doing to him. Helplessly, she looked at his stooped shoulders, at his hands hanging lifeless. A knife of pain turned in her chest. Everything that Joe had done, he had done for all of them. The trip was to bring all of them to a new and better place. If Joe had more hankering than other men had for an independent life, didn't that make him a better father too, a man for the children to look up to? Why, she was attacking the very courage that made Joe Tower the fine man that he was, the fine father, the brave and loving husband.