The Daughter's Walk by Jane Kirkpatrick Read Free Book Online

cyclones that lit the sky like fireworks with booms and crackles. I hated them.” She shivered. “And the prairie fires. And the harsh winters with their snowdrifts.” She sighed. “Little Ole wasn’t with us very long, but I still miss him. So,” she said in her changing-the-subject voice, “let’s stop at the store and pick up a hard candy to help us commemorate our walk.”
    I’d have to catch her in a thoughtful time to find out more.
    Mama hesitated at Schwartz’s store in Mica Creek.
    â€œThat’s Martin Siverson’s horse. Your father’s best friend thinks I should listen to my husband and not take this walk.”
    â€œLet’s not go in then.”
    The door opened as we turned to leave.
    â€œI suppose you’re off then, Mrs. Estby,” Martin said. He motioned to our bags. Mama paused and turned. “Such a crazy scheme. Shameful.”
    â€œIt’s for good,” Mama said.
    â€œSo you say,” Martin said. “And Clara. You can’t talk sense into your mother, then? Are you stubborn like she is?” He shook his head and crossed the street.
    My face burned. His expression reminded me of Mrs. Stapleton’s. Shameful. My mother’s wish to save the farm brought shame to our family. Would success even wash it away?
    â€œLet them say what they will,” Mama said. “I will prove them wrong. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
    Since I was going with her against my will, the least she could have said was “we.”

S EVEN

Walking
    S o much for God smiling on our venture. We walked through days of pouring rain. Mama said once we reached LaCrosse Junction, a Norwegian town in southern Washington, we wouldn’t have to sleep on the hard benches in the train stations because people there were like family. We’d speak Norwegian and be treated with hospitality.
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous,” one woman said as we approached her house, drenched to the bone. “You should have stayed home with your children where a good Norwegian wife should be!” She slammed the door in our faces, so we slept on the benches again, only ninety-five miles from Spokane.
    â€œI thought you said we’d be welcomed,” I complained.
    â€œThey don’t understand,” Mama told me. “As we move east, we’ll have a better reception.” We munched on hardtack in the depot and took turns watching the door so we could squeeze rain from our woolen coats by holding them in front of the potbellied stove. “At least we havea roof over our heads,” Mama said, putting the bag under her head as a pillow. I slept that night wondering at my mother’s ability to look for the good in things.
    We decided early on not to stop to eat according to the sun—which we hadn’t seen much of—but rather to be guided by our stomachs. Eggs were cheap and filling and could be eaten at any meal. Often when I ate them, I recalled Martin Siverson’s comments, or the women who closed doors in our faces, and the food coated my stomach with new uncertainty. Rain greeted us in Walla Walla, Washington, but the
Walla Walla Union
ran a long article about our journey, mentioning Mayor Belt’s endorsement and saying we were headed on to Boise City. We sold several photographs to sympathizing women and replenished our reserves, buying hard rolls and even a pat of butter because Mama said we needed fat to keep going. A family offered us a sweet-smelling bed above the horses in their barn. The sun came out one day and steamed our wet wool clothes. We slept mostly in the railroad stations, which were about nine miles apart. It was how we kept track of our daily distance. Well, that and the maps of the railroads we carried with us.
    My feet scraped along the Union Pacific outside of Umatilla, Oregon, and I remembered reading
Astoria
, a history book written by Washington Irving about the Astor fur-trading