Next Spring an Oriole (3 page)

“I hope you don’t mean to make a living by farming, sir,” Mr. LaBelle said to Papa. “It will take a good while before you can clear enough land to support your family. If I did not have my animal skins to sell, we would have starved long ago.”

Papa said, “I had hoped in a new settlement like this there would be a need for a surveyor. That is my trade and I hope to make my living at it.”

“There are few families here now,” Mr. LaBelle said, “but more come each month, and once a year the boat steams up the river from Lake Huron with settlers. Why shouldn’t you find a use for your trade? Roger, stop that!” None of the children wore shoes, and one little boy had removed mine. After examining them carefully, he was trying to walk in them.

When we had finished eating, Mr. LaBelle
urged us to spend the night in their cabin. It was drizzling outside and the thought of how damp and cold our beds in the wagon would be persuaded us. The best bedclothes, though none too clean, were laid out for us in one corner of the cabin. The children, who looked as if they were ready to climb into bed with us, were shooed to the opposite side.

“Your wagon will come to no harm with Voltaire to watch over it,” Mr. LaBelle told Papa. “In the morning you can find your property. I must warn you, you will need the safety of your own cabin as soon as possible. There are trappers here who have not taken kindly to settlers coming. They don’t want the land cleared and the swamps drained, for the fox and the mink and all the other wild animals will then go elsewhere.”

Papa said, “They will find me less an enemy than they think. I left our home in Virginia because men were too eager to turn every good thing God created to their own use.”

Soon we were all in our corners, wrapped in the LaBelles’ quilts. I was so tired from the
long journey, I slept soundly in spite of Mr. LaBelle’s great snores and the mouselike scurryings and rustlings of the children as they shifted about among themselves on their straw mattress.

When I awoke it was morning, and Mama was sitting straight up, whispering to Papa. She was trying to hide some worry that had come upon her in the night. In a minute she had her shoes laced and was making apologies to the LaBelles. “You have been so generous. We can’t impose further on your hospitality. Mr. Mitchell is anxious to see our land, and if you will excuse us, we will be on our way.” Mama said all that very nicely, but I could tell she was upset.

Voltaire growled and pulled at his chain. Mr. and Mrs. LaBelle stood at their doorway and waved. The children scrambled onto our wagon and had to be dragged away. “As soon as we have a cabin you must come to visit us,” called Mama.

“We will do better than that,” answered Mr. LaBelle. “We will help you to build the cabin.”

At this, the children cheered up and loosened their hold on the wagon, and the horses started up.

Once we were out of sight of the house and into the woods, Mama began to sob. Papa
stopped the horses and tried to comfort her. “They’ll go away,” he said.

“What will go away?” I asked, looking around.

Mama turned to me. “Do you feel nothing on your head? I pray to the Lord you have escaped, Libby.”

“Nothing,” I said. “Only little pinpricks.” Now that I thought about it, there was a funny feeling all through my hair, as if something were running about in it on tiny tiptoes.

“You, too!” Mama said, and cried louder than ever. “I should have thought of lice when I saw those children with their hair all cut off.”

“Oh, Mama! I won’t have to cut my hair like that! I don’t want it to stick up all over my head.”

Mama was a little calmer. “No, but we shall have to cut it or we will never get rid of the lice.”

“Not your hair, Mama. You won’t cut your hair!”

“Yes,” she said. “I will.” She went into the back, searching for the scissors. When she found them, she climbed down. “Now, then,” she said. She sounded very brave, but her face was streaked with tears. She unpinned her long hair that had taken years and years to grow and with a few snips cut it as short as Papa’s, so that it just covered her ears. Then she did a funny thing. She took her lovely long silky hair that had been cut off and went scattering it under the trees and hanging it on the branches.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“It will make a nice lining for the nests of the mice and birds. I don’t want it wasted.”

“Can I do that too?” Mama promised I could, so I let her cut mine off as short as hers. While she was busy cutting my hair, I saw Papa sneak a lock of Mama’s hair from one of the branches and carefully put it into his pocket. All he said, though, when Mama had finished with me, was that we both looked younger and prettier than before and that our new short hair would set a fashion.

“I’m afraid we have left such things as fashion far behind us, Rob,” Mama said. “I only hope we shall not end up with a bear chained to our doorstep and the stumps of trees to sit upon.”

“They were good people, Vinnie.”

“I don’t say they weren’t, Rob. They were kindness itself, but I am afraid we have come too far and left too much behind us.”

IV

On the way to our land we passed five or six cabins. Some of the families hurried to greet us, asking where we had come from and where we were headed. They were friendly and eager to give advice and offer help. There were also cabins where men watched us pass with no word of greeting. Around those cabins there was no clearing for the planting of crops. We took those men for trappers.

Papa was so eager to find our land, it was all he could do to make his manners to those along the way. Papa urged Ned and Dan along until the wagon was bouncing so hard Mama said, “Rob, if you don’t slow down every bone
in my body will be shaken loose.”

I was glad to hear her complain because she had been so quiet, which wasn’t like Mama. Papa slowed down, but only a little. The trail narrowed and there was just enough space between the trees for the wagon. Suddenly Papa shouted, “There’s the pond!” He jumped down and began to stride back and forth until at last he called, “Here’s the survey stake! This is our land, Vinnie! We have the whole east shore of the pond.” Papa had said nothing about the pond, wanting to surprise Mama and me. The three of us stood by the blue circle of water. After all the miles of hot, dusty trail, it was like a gift someone gives you when there is no reason for it.

Papa named everything for us as if he had just made up the names brand new—oak, popple, elm, maple, birch, hemlock, and, everywhere you looked, pine trees that nearly covered the sky. Papa was so pleased with the trees I thought he would surely put his arms around them and hug each one.

I ran down to the pond’s edge. With little
slapping noises green frogs hopped into the water. A string of ducklings swam behind their mother. Down the shore a way a huge bird, nearly as tall as I was, spread its wings and slowly followed the circle of the pond to the opposite shore. “A heron,” Papa said. “I’ll teach you to fish, Libby, just like he’s doing, and you can keep our skillet filled.”

“Look over there,” Mama whispered. Near where the heron had settled, a deer stood for just a moment before it moved back into the woods. “You were right, Rob,” Mama said. “It’s going to be a wonderful place.”

But the next day and for three days more it rained. Papa was up each morning at sunrise cutting trees for a cabin. We heard the sound of his axe all day long. In the wagon Mama made sketches of the pond and trees and of Papa swinging his axe. I did my lessons and sewed patches on my petticoats.

When Mama and I couldn’t stand being in the wagon for another minute, we went out into the rain to help Papa clear away the great pile of branches he had trimmed from the logs. We were always hungry because you couldn’t keep a fire going in the rain. Our clothes were damp and our beds at night were as cold and clammy as the little green frogs.

By the time the rain finally stopped, Papa had cut so many logs I could close my eyes and almost see what the cabin would look like. The sun shone bright and warm into the clearing made by the felled trees. Mama took the hoe and turned up the ground. I pulled up the clumps of sod. The dirt was dark and rich, and when we buried the seed potatoes in their little hills of earth, I felt they would be happy there.

That evening Papa called to Mama and me and said we were ready to decide just where the cabin would stand. “Right on the shore of the pond,” I said. “Then we can see the heron feeding and deer come down to drink.”

“If you put it at the edge of the pond,” Papa said, “there will be no trees to protect us, and in the winter, wind and snow will blow across the pond. It would be better to set the cabin among the trees. They will shelter us from the northwest winds.”

“But it’s so dark in the trees,” Mama said.

“I’ll put one window on the east side for the morning sun and one window on the west side for the afternoon sun. If I cut down a tree or two in front of the windows there will be light enough.”

Papa took a sharp stick and drew a big square on the ground, about twice as big as our wagon.

“Can we sleep in our cabin tonight?” I asked.

Mama and Papa looked at me. “There is no cabin,” Papa said.

I pointed to the outline Papa had made
with his stick. It was July and the night was warm. “Why couldn’t we take our quilts outside and sleep right here? We could pretend the cabin was all built.”

Mama and Papa exchanged looks. “Very well,” Papa said. “We will. On which side of the cabin are you going to choose to sleep?” he asked me.

“On the east side,” I said, “so the sun will wake me first thing in the morning.”

V