Westward Hearts (14 page)

“Well, I’d rather run out of almost anything but food.” Clara pounded the lid of a crate firmly into place. “The men will hunt and fish along the way, but you can’t always depend on that. Even though it’s a lot of work, it’s best to be prepared.”

They continued working for nearly an hour and were finally closing the tailgate when Asa and Jamie came ambling down the boardwalk toward them. Elizabeth blinked at her son, imagining that he was growing up right before her eyes.

“We got the two other wagons all loaded onto the boat,” Asa informed them. “Matthew stayed with them.”

“To make sure no one steals anything,” Jamie explained. “And Brady’s tending the livestock.”

“Matthew was worried about the firearms going missing,” Asa told them. “Some disreputable types were milling around down there. But the captain assured us that once the hold was fully loaded, it would be locked down tight as a drum, and unless we’re at port, no one is allowed in that part of the cargo area.”

“But it’s not locked up where the livestock stay,” Jamie explained. “You’re allowed to come and go down there as much as you like, in order to take care of your animals. But Brady has offered to stay with them for the whole trip.”

“Brady’s going to stay with the animals?” Elizabeth frowned.

“He said he preferred that to sleeping on the colored deck,” Jamie told her. “And he already got a nice bed made of hay. And I got him some blankets from the wagon. And I told him we’d bring food to him.”

“Oh…” Elizabeth nodded. Perhaps being with the animals was preferable to sleeping next to strangers on a crowded deck.

“And Brady asked me to put his savings in my safe place for him,” Asa told her. “I also assured him that we would all continue to pay him a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. And he was much obliged, but he asked that we keep an account for him and then settle up when we get to Oregon.”

“Thank you, Father. I had meant to extend that same offer to him.”

“And Matthew and I will help him with the animals too,” Jamie assured her. “And Brady said that Flax can stay down there with him. But I’ll take him out for walks on the deck.”

“Sounds like you have everything all figured out,” Elizabeth told them.

“Now, unless you ladies have more shopping to do, I’d like to get this wagon down to the boat too,” Asa said. “Matthew is holding us a place, but we can’t keep him waiting.”

“We’ve gotten everything on the list,” Clara told him.

“And then some,” Ruth added.

“Would you rather walk or ride?” Asa called out as he climbed into the wagon seat.

“How far is the dock from here?” Clara asked.

“Less than two miles.”

“I think we should walk,” Elizabeth decided. “But does that mean we have to carry our bags with us?” They had packed special bags of clothes to be used on the riverboat trip, but they weren’t exactly light.

“No, we’ll have those sent to your cabin for you,” Asa told her as Jamie climbed into the seat beside him. “You ladies will share a cabin on the ladies’ side of the boat.”

“Ladies’ side?”

“Oh, yes.” Clara nodded. “I remember now. Unless you have a bridal cabin, which is quite expensive, the men and women have separate areas.”

“Hold on there,” Asa called out as he reached into his jacket pocket. “Don’t forget these.” He leaned down to hand Elizabeth the tickets and then gave them some quick directions to the dock. “You can’t miss ’er,” he said with a grin.

“She’s called the
Princess Annabelle,”
Jamie called out as Asa released the brake on the wagon and gently snapped the reins.

“Princess Annabelle,”
Ruth repeated with wonder as they began to walk. “What a pretty name.”

As it turned out, the riverboat was just as pretty as her name, tall and white with two levels of cabins above the water’s surface and an enormous red paddle wheel on the back. Crew and workers buzzed about the boat like bees on a hive, loading and unloading and cleaning and helping.

“This does look nice,” Elizabeth said as they paused on the dock to admire it.

“Come on, Mama,” Ruth urged, “let’s get on.”

Feeling like royalty, Elizabeth took Ruth’s hand and looped arms with her mother, and the three of them marched up the gangway and onto the boat. “I hope this doesn’t spoil us,” she murmured.

Clara chuckled. “Might as well enjoy it while we can.”

“Oh, my!” Elizabeth exclaimed as they went into a large room on the first deck. Carpeted with floral red rugs and furnished with red velvet chairs and couches, it was far more luxurious than she ever imagined.

“Look at the lights,” Ruth whispered.

“Gas,” Clara explained.

“Look at that.” Ruth pointed to an enormous pastoral oil painting that filled up a whole wall.

“Very pretty.” Elizabeth nodded and then glanced at a pair of women walking past them. One was dressed in an elegant periwinkle blue velvet gown. The other wore a similar dress in a russet tone.

“And look at the ceiling!” Ruth pointed to the ornate moldings. “Is that real gold, Mama?”

“I don’t know for sure.”

Ruth continued to gush over the furnishings, and Elizabeth turned to her mother. “Look how finely the passengers are dressed,” she quietly told her. “I feel like a hayseed in comparison.”

“Perhaps we should go to our cabin and freshen up,” Clara suggested.

Just then a steward appeared, asking if they needed directions. Elizabeth showed them their tickets, and they soon found themselves standing in a lovely stateroom, furnished similarly to the rest of the boat.

“I can sleep here.” Ruth flopped down on the velvet-covered couch by the window. “You and Grandma can have the big bed.”

“Here are our bags,” Clara announced.

Before long, they had unpacked and freshened their dresses. “If I had known we were going to be traveling in such style, I would have packed more festive clothes,” Elizabeth said as she rebraided Ruth’s hair. “I had no idea.”

“What few festive clothes I brought are packed in the bottom of one of those crates,” Clara said. “I suppose we shall just have to make do.”

“If anyone asks us, we will simply tell them we’re pioneers.” Elizabeth laughed as she tied a blue ribbon around Ruth’s braid. “Frontier women, about to go on a great adventure.”

“Let’s go out and have an adventure right now,” Ruth suggested.

“You two go ahead,” Clara said. “I think I will simply enjoy a little adventure right here on this nice little couch.”

Elizabeth could hardly believe they had a little more than two weeks to spend on this lavish riverboat. It just didn’t seem right. What if they became so spoiled by these luxuries that the deprivations of the Oregon Trail seemed much worse by comparison? What if they all became soft?

“Let’s walk around the decks,” she told Ruth. “We need to keep ourselves strong for the trip ahead.”

Ruth didn’t complain. But as they walked around the riverboat, going up and down stairs and around the various decks, Elizabeth began to see that there were all sorts of influences aboard this boat. And she suspected that many of them were not particularly good.

“Excuse me, ma’am.” An officer stopped her as they came around a corner. “You and your little girl should not be down here.”

“Oh?” She blinked. “We were just trying to stretch her legs.”

“Stretch them on the upper deck,” he sternly told her.

She nodded. “We’ll do that. Thank you.”

By the time they returned to the cabin, she had decided that under no circumstances would Ruth be allowed to roam freely on this boat. She’d seen enough debauchery, including drunken men and ill-clad ladies, to convince her that a riverboat was not a wholesome place for children. She would make certain that her father and brother understood this in regard to Jamie too.

In fact, despite the glitter and glitz of the
Princess Annabelle,
Elizabeth would be greatly relieved when this portion of their journey came to an end. She looked forward to being on the Oregon Trail more than ever now. She imagined the wagon train, where people would be decent and hardworking—like herself and her family. They would have a sense of kinship and purpose, like a big family. Perhaps they would have a church of sorts or at least sing hymns and pray together. Compared to this riverboat, it would be heavenly.

F
ortunately, Elizabeth discovered that when she and the children stayed to their own deck, there was much less riffraff to rub elbows with on the
Princess Annabelle.
Certainly, there were some who looked to be gamblers, but they were well dressed and relatively polite, and they didn’t usually emerge until later in the day. The same was true with some of the questionable ladies. As a result, Elizabeth created a schedule for how they spent their time.

She insisted the children get up early, and while the boat remained fairly calm and quiet, they would walk around the upper decks with Flax and their grandmother for at least an hour. During this time, they would discuss the river towns they were passing by and consult with their map. Jamie was sometimes excused from this activity when he joined Matthew and Brady in caring for their livestock below.

Following their constitutionals they would have breakfast, and after attending to their various chores on the boat, which included washing their clothes and cleaning their cabins, they would then settle themselves at one of the big round tables in the dining hall and do their schooling.

Elizabeth had purchased all their books from the school in Selma, and she intended to keep Jamie and Ruth on track throughout the upcoming months. “But if you get ahead of your lessons during the boat trip,” she promised, “we might not need to have school every day while we’re on the Oregon Trail.” The idea of an early vacation from studies seemed incentive enough, and the children worked hard. Besides, they soon discovered that the schoolwork was a good way to fill the time.

Elizabeth focused much of their schoolwork on their travels. Whether it was arithmetic, geography, or writing, she tried to relate their studies to their journey. They calculated mileage and dates. They wrote poems about the landscape and rivers. They drew maps of Kentucky and Missouri, including the Ohio River, where their journey began, and then the mighty Mississippi River, which they navigated for nearly one hundred miles, and finally, after passing the large city of St. Louis less than halfway through their riverboat trip, the Missouri River.

After their schoolwork was done and following another constitutional around the upper deck, usually with Flax joining them, they would all have an early supper. Then Elizabeth and Ruth would retreat to the cabin for reading or drawing or writing in their journals until bedtime. Meanwhile Jamie would take Brady his supper and help with the livestock for an hour or so before joining Elizabeth and Ruth in the stateroom.

Elizabeth understood that Matthew and her parents enjoyed staying up later, mixing with the other travelers, absorbing the color, and enjoying the music. The riverboat became louder and livelier after stopping in St. Louis, and sometimes Elizabeth felt she was missing out on some of the fun. But for the most part, she was content to remain with the children in the stateroom.

However, there were times when she found some of the grown-ups’ activities a bit disturbing. It hadn’t taken long to realize that gambling, drinking, and flamboyantly dressed women could spell trouble. Not that her family participated in that sort of thing. At least she hoped not…although she couldn’t be absolutely sure about her brother. It made Elizabeth uneasy knowing about such goings-on, and she was thankful to have her children safely with her. And eventually her mother would grow weary of the noise, and Asa would take Jamie back to his cabin for the night.

Traveling by riverboat wasn’t an ideal existence, but Elizabeth reminded herself it was getting them ever closer to the jumping-off place. And before long, it would simply be a memory.

“Six more days,” Elizabeth announced toward the end of February. They had just sat down to their schoolwork, and she was studying the map and the calendar, secretly wishing that they were closer to Kansas City by now. “We will pass by Booneville today,” she said absently. The children simply nodded, focusing on the lessons in front of them. It was clear that the charm of riverboat travel had worn off with the children as well as with her. Even her parents seemed bored and restless. And Matthew was growing concerned that the livestock could be suffering from lack of exercise. It seemed that all of them were eager to begin the next part of their journey.