Margaret McCarter - Winning the Wilderness

All the week days were full of duties, but every Sabbath morning found the three settlers of the valley making a prairie sanctuary of the Aydelot cabin. The elder Aydelots had not united with any church, but Asher and Jim, when they were only boys, had been converted at a Methodist revival in Cloverdale. It was an old-fashioned kind of religious leading, but it was strong enough to hold the two for all the years that followed. Virginia had been reared an Episcopalian, but the men out-voted her and declared that the Aydelot home was the Sunflower Inn for six days in the week, but on the seventh it was the “First Methodist Church of the Conference of the Prairies.”

There was no levity in its service, however, and He who dwelleth not in temples made with men’s hands blessed with his own benediction of peace and trust and courage the three who set up their altar to Him in this far-away place.

On Sabbath afternoons they explored the sand dunes and grassy levels up and down the river. Sometimes they rode northward to the main trail in hope of sighting some prairie schooner coming hitherward, but not once that season did the trail hold a human being for them.

October slipped into November with a gradual sharpening of the frosty air. Everything had been made as snug as possible for the winter. The corrals were enlarged for the stock. The houses and stables were thatched against the cold and storms; and fuel and food were carefully stored. But November was almost passed before the end of the bright and sometimes even balmy days.

“We must have Jim up to the Sunflower Inn for Thanksgiving dinner. Might as well invite the whole neighborhood,” Asher said one evening, as he helped Virginia with the supper dishes.

“I’m planning a real dinner, too,” his wife declared, “just like old Mammy Diane used to cook. You couldn’t tell it from hers if you’d ever eaten one of her spreads.”

“I suppose it will taste about as near like one of Diane’s meals as you will look like the cook that made her meals,” Asher answered.

“Well, I’m getting along that way. Look at my tanned arms now. There’s a regular dead line, a perfect fireguard at the elbow. And my muscles, Mammy Diane would say, ’is jus’ monst’ous.’”

Virginia pushed back her sleeve to show the well-marked line where white above met tan below.

“Jim will think anything is better than eating alone out of his own grub box, and your dinner will be a feast,” Asher said, opening the door to carry out the dish water. “What do you think of this?”

A gust of cold rain swished in as the door fell open.

“Our rain is here, at last. Maybe it will bring snow for Thanksgiving, and we could have a touch of New England here,” Virginia said.

The pelting rain and deepening chill made the little home a very snug nest that night. There was only one stove to warm the house, but they kept up a fiction of parlor and dining room, kitchen and bed chamber. Even the library was there, although it encroached dreadfully on the parlor, bedroom and kitchen, all three, for it consisted of space enough for two chairs, one footstool, and a tiny lamp-stand, beside which they spent their evenings.

“Who’s likely to drop in tonight, and what’s the program for the evening: charades, music, readings, dancing, cribbage, or political speeches?” Asher inquired.

They had invented all sorts of pastimes, with make-believe audiences, such as little children create for their plays. For these two were children in a big child world. The wilderness is never grown up. It is Nature’s little one waiting to be led on and disciplined to mature uses. Asher and Virginia had already peopled the valley with imaginary settlers, each one of a certain type, and they adapted their pastime to the particular neighbors whom they chose to invite for the evening. How little the helpless folk in the city, bored with their own dullness, and dependent on others for amusement – how little could such as these cope with the loneliness of the home on the plains, or comprehend the resourcefulness of the home-makers there!

“Oh, let’s just spend the evening alone. It’s too stormy for the Arnolds and Archibalds beyond the Deep Bend, and the Spoopendykes have relatives from the East and the Gilliwigs are all down with colds.”

Virginia had tucked herself down in the one rocking chair, with her feet on the footstool.

“It’s such a nice night to be to ourselves. Watch the rain washing that west window. It’s getting worse. I always think of Jim on nights like this.”

“So do I,” Asher said, as he sat down in the armed chair he had made for himself of cottonwood limbs with a gunny sack seat. “He’s all alone with his dog these dark nights, and loneliness cuts to the heart of a man like Jim. I’m glad I have you, Virginia. I couldn’t do without you now. The rain is getting heavier every minute. Sounds like it was thumping on the door. Listen to that wind!”

“Tell me about Jim, Asher. What made him come out here anyhow?” Virginia asked.

“I don’t know all the story. Jim has never seemed to want to tell me, and I’ve never cared to ask him,” Asher replied. “When we were away together at school, he was in love with one of the prettiest girls that Ohio ever grew. She lived in the country up the valley from Cloverdale. Her name was Alice Leigh, and she was a whole cut above the neighborhood. Jim said she was an artist, could do wonderful things with a brush and she was just wild to go somewhere and take lessons.

“Jim was planning always how to give her the opportunity to do it, but her mother, who owned a lot of land for that country and could afford to send Alice away to study, couldn’t see any dollar sign in it, so she kept her daughter on the farm.”

Asher paused and looked at Virginia. His own happiness made his voice tremble as he went on.

“He has a brother Tank. I suppose his real name is Thaddeus, or Tantalus, or something like it; I never knew, and I never liked him well enough to ask. Tank was a black-eyed little runt whom none of the boys liked, a grasping cuss, younger than Jim, and as selfish as Jim is kind.

“Just before I came West to scout the Indians off the map, Jim came back to school one time so unlike himself that I made him tell me what was the matter. It was Tank, he said, who was making trouble for him up in the Leigh neighborhood, and he was so grieved and unhappy, I wouldn’t ask any more about it. I left for the West soon after that. When I went back to Cloverdale, Tank Shirley had married Alice Leigh and her mother’s farm, and Jim had left the country. I ran on to him by accident up at Carey’s Crossing when I came West again, but I’ve never heard him say a word about the matter, and, of course, I don’t mention it, although I believe it would do Jim good if he could bring himself to tell me about it. He’s never been quite the same since. He has a little tendency to lung trouble, which the plains air is taking out of him, but he’s had a bad attack of pneumonia, and it’s an old enemy of his, as it always is to a man of his physique. He’s a good worker, but lacks judgment to make his work count. Doesn’t really seem to have much to work for. But he’s a friend to the last ditch. Just hear the rain!”

“It seems to be knocking against the door again,” Virginia said, “and how the wind does howl! Poor Jim!”

“Listen to that! Sounds like something loose against the window. There’s something out there.” Asher started up with the words.

Something white had seemed to splash up against the window and drop back again. It splashed up a second time, and fell again. Asher hurried to the door, and as he opened it, Pilot, the big white-throated dog from the Shirley claim, came bounding in, so wet and shaggy he seemed to bring all the storm in with him.