Alone on the Oregon Trail (6 page)

When her father asked her why not, she responded that it would look bad for him to have a single woman accompanying him who was not his wife. She had a fairly serious look upon her face, so I bowed out graciously and said that I hadn’t really felt good that morning and should stay home.

That satisfied her and left Grayson with a frown on his face. I was fine with it because I didn’t think I was ready for something like that myself and deep inside I was thanking Mattie for that one.

When they returned from church, there was fried chicken, potatoes and gravy waiting for them and the looks on their faces was a memory for me still today. As little Mattie sat down at her place, she grinned and said, “Wow for a woman who was so sick, she sure healed up quick.”

I raised one eyebrow and gave her a wink and sat down and watched that child fill her plate twice. This was the beginning of great progress for me and was glad to see the child eat what I had cooked for her.

This was another bridge I managed to cross over without falling off.

As time went on, many bridges came and went. Some I managed to cross over gracefully, and others I would fall just like her little song goes, but I would grasp some inner courage and start all over. Our rides with Bailey became quite common and Bailey was enjoying it as much as we were.

He had been growing to like Mattie himself and very often he would bring his head down to her tiny face and nudge her, waiting for her to rub him. She began pouring out her love on this animal and it was three steps forward each time she would respond to him.

She, however, still had not given in to showing any affection to the rest of us. For a long while it would only be Bailey who was worthy of her touch, according to her.

Evening time became interesting and when her moods allowed, she would wander over when I would be reading and lean over my shoulder to see what was keeping me glued to my book. When I would offer to read to her, she would snarl or curl up her nose like she was not interested, but when I would return to my book, she would come back and peek.

It was trial and error with Mattie and I learned quickly to not take anything personally. If I let myself take things personal I would be in a constant state of hurt. So, I took each day for what it offered and I rolled with her punches.

Her outbursts were still happening weekly, but I began to notice that she was not having so many each day.

Meredith, on the other hand, was starting to change. It was not until I saw Meredith roll her eyes even at me, and I realized that I had been giving Mattie all of my attention and as I watched Grayson, he also was paying no attention to Meredith.

Even though we all knew that Mattie needed extra care, it was becoming quite evident that Meredith was beginning to suffer. So, I began to make plans with Meredith as well. I kept a book beside my bed that I could keep track of progress with Mattie as well as write down ideas that came to mind about Meredith.

It sat beside my journal that I kept close to me and I would write in my journal each day how I felt about missing Nathaniel and would log memories of our life we had together so that I would not ever forget those moments. I never dreamed that anyone would be so rude to read into my personal life and never felt that I should keep it hidden.

One evening when I got ready to tuck myself into bed, I noticed that my journal and the other book had switched places. Very calmly I reached onto the night stand and picked up my journal and peeked inside and saw nothing out of sorts.

When I picked up the other book I found food stuck between the pages, making the pages stick together. I knew immediately who the culprit was and although I felt like running into her room and dealing with it, I chose to sleep on it and face her in the morning.

It did bother me though that she felt like she had the right to enter my room and go through my personal things. This was just rude and it had to be stopped. Before I lay my head down to sleep, I decided that I would at least let Grayson know about it, so he would know beforehand why I was speaking to Mattie about such a thing.

I knew he would understand that it would have to be dealt with. I laid my head down on my pillow, whispered a good night to my sleeping Nathaniel and nodded off to a peaceful sleep myself. Morning would come early enough and the chance to set Mattie straight about my room and my belongings would be there when I woke up.

Morning did come, indeed, and it came with hollers ringing across the prairie. Meredith had awaken and found that Mattie was nowhere to be found. After searching the house she took it upon herself to go outside and search for her.

Looking all over the barn and the back pastures, she found nothing. Poor Meredith had such a sweet and caring heart that she was all stirred up because she could not find her younger sister, while Mattie at times acted as if she hated her with passion.

As I jumped up, throwing on my riding clothes, the thought came to me that perhaps Mattie had ran off because she knew I must had seen my journals by now and she was running from consequences.

If that was the case, then I might just find her where we would have our picnic lunches when we would ride together. I ran to the barn and saddled up Bailey and jumped on, taking off in a canter as quickly as I brought up my right leg.

Finding her was not the problem, the problem was getting her to go back home with me. I found her just where I knew she would be, sitting under the large Oak tree where we enjoyed our picnic lunches.

She was picking at tiny tree limbs that she had pulled from the tree and she was stripping them down to tiny shreds. She never lifted her head to meet my eyes, but she certainly knew I was there. I just hopped off Bailey and let him loose to graze while I walked on over and sat down on the leaf covered ground beside her.

Taking one of her twigs from her, I began stripping it down as she had been doing and she belted out a laugh at me, saying, “Geesh, you cannot do anything right Brooklyn, no wonder your bridges are always falling down.”

This irritated me to the core because after all I had just rode out that far to bring a little spoiled girl back home that had been sneaking into my things that are personal, and she had run off to get out of facing the consequences. This gave me the opportunity to speak to Mattie with a stern voice and I was about to make myself known that I too had a moody side.

When the first word was out of my mouth she cut in and said “So, I guess I am your new project now, kind of like I am your pet and you are trying to train me. Is that it?”

“No Mattie, you are not kind of like my subject, nor are you my little pet that I feel I need to train. You are a young child that is living with a world of hurt inside her body and I am trying to help you release that pain. That guilt you are carrying is not yours to carry.”

I should have known I had said too much and this set her on fire. I had found that you cannot speak to her for long, and especially about her. She cannot handle talking about her or her feelings.

“You are a liar, because I read it right there that I am like a little bunny at times and lost my ability to hunt for my own food, and so on…tell me that I am not like a pet to you!”

“Oh Mattie, that’s just a figure of speech. I--”

“Figure of speech? Yes, that is right. It is a figure of speech, it is the written word, your own words.”

“Yes, but what I mean is that I compare you to a little helpless bunny that needs help along the way because he has lost his mommy…”

“Don’t you ever talk about my mommy!”

“Sweetheart, maybe we
should
talk about…”

“No! We should not. You are so stupid, just like one of our stupid pigs. My mommy did not get lost from me -- she is dead, and she’s dead because I killed her!”

“Oh darling, you did not kill your mommy.”

“Get your hands off of me!”

I had reached over lightly and touched her arm and this went against her own rules, so I pulled my hand back to give her space and lowered my head as if I had something to be ashamed of by showing some love to the dear child. When I looked back up, she had walked over to Bailey and had the reins in her hand and was about to hop on him.

I quickly went over to her and gently took the reins from her hand saying “Mattie, Bailey is my horse and you cannot just take things that are not yours. Now, if you like you can ride behind me and we will go back home.”

“No thank you!” she screamed as her body shook and she began running towards home. There was not much else I could do, as I knew she would never hop on with me, so I jumped upon Bailey and we slowly began trotting to the house.

By the time Mattie got back to the house, I had unsaddled Bailey and turned him loose in the pasture to graze and as I took a look back, I saw Mattie as she came up over the tiny hill just beyond the house. Shaking her head and cursing up a storm, here she came, as mad as a wet hen.

I chose to not make eye contact and went on in the house, warning Meredith that Mattie had been found and was boiling mad. At the sound of that Meredith went into her room and closed the door.

She knew too well what kind of mood Mattie would be in when she entered the house. I followed her advice and did the same. I had to think that this was one more bridge to cross and I considered this to be one where Brooklyn fell from.

Chapter Eight

(Down In The Valley)

After the initial screaming I received from Mattie, things began to calm down. So much so that there was total silence and this about drove me insane. It had become “down in the valley” around here for sure.

Everyone fell into a secret and quiet stillness and at any point and time you could hear the doves as they cooed in the trees. One day as I was sitting under our special tree with Bailey, I heard a lonesome dove whisper just above my head.

It sounded like his little heart had been broken and I watched as he stirred about in his nest above me. As I studied him, I decided that it must have been a female dove and she may have lost the chicks from her nest. The nest sat empty but she kept turning in it, repositioning herself over and over, and then she would lean her head over the edges of the nest and coo.

She seemed so lonely and heartbroken and I thought perhaps her little ones may have fallen from the nest and were now gone from her life, kind of like Nathaniel left my life in one day. I felt sorry for the soft, gray dove and I began humming lightly a song that I remembered humming before. The words “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me…” and before long I was singing out the song in a soft pitch that seemed to soothe the sad little bird.

I was grateful that something could ease her pain, if only for a short time, and I found myself falling asleep under the shade of my familiar old oak. When I woke up noon had passed on and it was coming evening upon the horizon.

Along with it looked to be a possible storm as well and this shot me up as quickly as I saw it there. Grayson had left for town that morning and was not expected to return until night fall. Now with this storm coming in, I not only had to worry about the girls and me, but for him as well.

Grabbing Bailey’s reins I jumped up on him and took off as fast as he could go and got to the house in time to see a funnel cloud that had shot down, swirling itself into the shape of a cone.

Knowing exactly what this was and hurrying inside I began screaming at the top of my lungs at the girls to come out to me and they both, to my grateful heart, came running out to me and I grabbed them both by the hand and took off running to the cellar.

As I was passing by the gate I saw Bailey standing there. This broke me into a panic of choices and I chose first to get the girls into the cellar and then I ran back out to Bailey. I knew there was nothing I could do to save his life and I jerked his bridle off and saddle off and I screamed at him to run for safety.

Then I ran back to the cellar with the girls. Crying out to God to save Bailey and to save Grayson, wherever he was; I realized that I had not forgotten my God in times of stress and I cried out even harder, asking for mercy upon me and to forgive me for wandering so far from Him.

We sat in the cellar and listened to the howling that rang throughout the land and we heard tree limbs snapping and wondered how big the trees were that were being ripped from their roots.

I found myself thinking on my favorite old oak, praying it to be spared and my thoughts then stayed on Bailey. I sat and thought about places he might have ran to, hoping he had made his way out of the path of the devil storm that was tearing our place apart. I could tell that buildings were being torn to shreds and all I could think of was the house and would it be standing when we climbed from our safe cellar?

We all had plenty of time to think on these things and I could hear both girls whimpering and praying and their heads were tucked down under my arms, and for once this small Mattie child was allowing me to touch her and again we had received pity from the good Lord.

When the storm finally ended and the sounds of darkness had come to a still, we climbed slowly from the cellar to find our land absolutely ravaged. The house was gone. All that stood in its place was the remainder of the outside walls and the amount of destruction was soon realized.

We helped each other crawl out and as their little heads turned this way and that way, you could see their tears roll down the sides of their faces. Immediately Mattie screamed out in pain and I thought somehow she had been hurt, but she was screaming about Bailey.

“My God, where is Bailey?” I screamed back and I ran to the barn to see it standing so tall and strong. It was a horrible scene to see the house completely gone and yet the barn stood erect.

Thinking Bailey must be in the barn, we all took off towards it and getting inside, we could not find Bailey at all and our hearts sunk. As we all sat there is sobs that screamed out pain, we could not shake it. Then in a moments time, little Mattie mentioned the old oak tree and that Bailey might have went there.

In my mind I was thinking the old oak is probably gone because of how old it was, but it was worth going to check. Hand in hand we all ran out over the hill to see if we could be so blessed to see Bailey standing under it and just as our hearts had cried for, there he stood, under the old oak, swishing his tail back and forth.

He heard our cries of happiness and turned to look our way and began trotting over to us. When he came to us we all three wrapped our arms around his neck and we stood there for a good half hour loving him and finally loving each other.

A twister had struck through our lives, taking our home, leaving the barn; taking only a selected few trees and leaving one special oak tree that stood as strong as ever, covering the most precious friend we had.

Now, it was time to worry about Grayson and we all ran back to the barn waiting for him to return. It was coming upon nightfall and he should be arriving anytime and just as he had said he came pulling up in his wagon that was filled with supplies, food and special surprises for all.

As he came up, he was frantic because he’d seen the funnel head in our direction and what he must have felt when he saw us running out to greet him -- our eyes fully opened wide, our house completely gone and a barn that would, for the time, be our new home.

The morning had started out to be very solemn, and yet by evening time disaster had struck, but the good Lord reached down his mighty arm and protected what was His, and we all were so grateful.

Down in the valley quickly turned into lifting our voices and praises to God for His mercy upon us all as that ruthless twister came crashing down taking everything in the path that God would allow it to take.

We were looking at lives spared, a horse spared, and a barn that would fill our needs for shelter. What more can a glorious God do for those He loves?

Our next job was to begin cleaning up the mess that the twister had left behind and we began with picking up what could be saved from the wreckage of the house. As I started going through the rubble, I was sad to think that my journals would not be found, but I had accepted the fact, until little Mattie came running to me with something in her hand.

She giggled and wiped away tears from her face as she placed both of my journals in my hands. I could not believe my eyes. The Lord had also spared my precious journals and I again found myself hitting my knees in thanksgiving.

I had not lost the bits and pieces of my life with Nathaniel that I so longed for.

The twister had come into our lives and destroyed much, but due to the mercy of God, much was spared and besides that, my relationship with Mattie began to blossom afterwards. I noticed that the two girls began having little conversations as well and it looked like God was doing His fine work in the hearts of two sisters and it was a wonderful thing to finally experience some healing taking place.

Grayson and I began at once making new plans for our new home that we would all build together and as we tarried along with our plans, the girls became very excited with the plans that Grayson laid out.

It would be a larger home in the shape of the letter L. He had always wanted to have a ranch style house and this is what it would become. The girls would have their own rooms and of course I would have one as well. There would be a room for Grayson and he was planning on three extra bedrooms.

We would have a back porch as well as a front porch and this was going to be a lot of work for us all. We were excited and all willing to pitch in. In the meantime we would be fine living in the barn and we gathered everything that was salvageable from the house that was hit, and we loaded in the wagon and took it to the barn.

The barn served us well, and we were able to be near to Bailey, which made things super sweet for Mattie and me both. We were able to put up a few walls to separate some rooms for us all and he built an outhouse very close to the back of the barn.

Things would be fine for us living in the barn and he built us a big cook stove in the middle of the barn with a pipe that went all the way to the ceiling, letting the smoke escape and it rolled across the skies.

It took us a long time to build the new house due to weather and we went through three more storms after that initial one. We survived them as well and our barn was never touched. We were able to finish the house by the following spring and we spent our first winter in the barn.

To our amazement we were warm and toasty in the barn and if it wasn’t for the fact that we had already begun building the house, we might have just made the barn our home. The house was finally finished and we were moving in and the little hands were everywhere lending their service.

Mattie and Meredith were speaking much more by this time and it was so pleasurable to watch them work side by side. I began showing them my plans for making them rooms all girly and it excited Meredith, but Mattie was still Mattie and she preferred less style.

So, I laughed and told her that I would save some of the pretties just in case she ever changed her mind. It wasn’t long until she approached me one day asking me if I still had some of that material I had picked out for her curtains and her blanket across her bed.

I smiled and tapped her on the head, knowing that this day would come and I led her into my bedroom, lifted the lid to my storage box. There inside were the remnants of dresses I had traded blackberry pies and baked breads for, and they were edged with lace and darling faux pearls.

There was plenty left that would take care of her bedroom window and would also be enough for a satin backing upon her blanket that she could spread clear across her bed. Her eyes lit up and I could tell that she was overjoyed.

Little Mattie was growing up after all and although she would never admit it, she had a touch of girl in her.

When I finished tidying up Mattie’s room, I then led her in blindfolded so she could not peek. I did not want her to see bits and pieces, but to open those big beautiful eyes and see the contrast of the entire room.

I twirled her around in circles a couple times for fun and then set her free. As she stood there taking the folds from her eyes slowly, she began screaming in delight as she looked around the room.

Her curtains were a rose pink, covered with lace, pearls and strips of satin running along the tiny edges. They were frilly, maybe more than she might have expected, but her actions spoke much louder than words as her little face lit up.

Her bed covering was so preciously pink and I had outlined it with remnants of some of her and her sister’s dresses, making it a little more personal. The lace hung over each side giving it such a plush puffy look, and it was encircled with pearls and jewels in dazzling pinks and precious blues.

Around the edges where she would be covering her little face was pure satin strips that would feel so soft and sleek against her. Grayson also had his own surprises for both girls and he went to the barn and brought back two beautiful handmade cedar chests that he had made himself.

He had carved their names into the lid so carefully and carved pictures as well on the front of each one. On the outside of Mattie’s he had drawn a picture of Mattie with her golden locks falling all around her face and he transferred it to the cedar chest. It was so lovely and I was so proud of Grayson for his hard work.

Meredith’s was a beautiful cedar chest and he had left it original and stained it. On the outside of hers was a beautiful young girl, holding an umbrella fully opened. It was precious and she was so happy when she too saw what her daddy had been working on so hard.

He made me one as well and as he led me into my bedroom, he presented me with a solid oak chest, representing my favorite oak tree and on the lid he had inscribed ‘Brooklyn’s Bridges at Loves’ Landing’.

He and I both knew exactly what he meant by the many bridges I had to cross as I worked with the girls. He whispered into my ear and said, “With each bridge passed, you can add a memory in this chest to mark how far you have come.”

It was stunning and the oak was so smooth. What a wonderful idea for the words inscribed on top of the lid and I kindly ran over to him, giving him the first hug since that day that Bailey brought me into their home. It was a blessed day at the Love home and we still had a surprise for Grayson that he knew nothing about.

The girls squirmed with delight as they waited patiently for me to give them the permission to run and fetch what we had for their father. As Grayson stood there looking at me as we stood alone in my bedroom, it was the first time that we took that long of a look at each other and he walked over towards me and reached out his arm and took my hand in his.