In the Face of Danger (5 page)

“If doing a chore does all that for you, than maybe it will do the same for me,” Megan said. “Do you have something for me to do so that I’ll feel at home?”

“Oh, dear little Megan!” Emma dropped the broom and enfolded Megan in a hug.

Megan, her head nestled against Emma’s chest, could hear the calm, steady beat of Emma’s heart and feel the thrust of her well-rounded belly against her own body. The belly suddenly gave a thump and shifted, and Megan stepped back, smiling. “When will the baby come?” she asked.

Emma gently patted the protruding curve. “Late December or early January,” she said. “Nelda told me this child is so active, it’s bound to be strong and healthy.”

Megan could still remember when Ma’s babies were born. Old Mrs. Gridley, who lived down the hall, always came to help. The first thing she did every time was to shoo the children out of the room.

When Petey, the youngest, was about to be born, Megan had begged to stay, frightened at leaving Ma. Her hair down and soaked with perspiration, Ma seemed to be in some faraway place where she could neither see nor hear her children. But Mrs. Gridley put Megan out of the room, telling her to help Frances watch Mike, Danny, and Peg.

Finally Mrs. Gridley had opened the door to invite them back inside, informing them that they had a beautiful baby brother. Megan had hung on Ma’s arm, staring at the tiny round red face in the bundle Ma was holding. “I was afraid,” she whispered.

Ma reached over to brush a tear from Megan’s cheek. “Dear little love, having a baby is part of a woman’s life, and it is surely a great waste to be afraid of life. Just look at this fine boy now. Wouldn’t you say he was worth it?”

Megan pulled herself back to the present and asked Emma, “When the time comes, will there be a woman here to help you?”

“Yes, Megan. Don’t worry,” she said. “There is a grandmother who lives with her family in a sod house about five miles from here. She’s already promised to come ahead of time and stay with us so she’ll be at hand when the baby is ready.”

“Good,” Megan said and gave a little shiver of relief.

Ben stomped his feet on the front step, knocking the dust from his boots, and opened the door. “Megan,” he said, “would you care to come outside again? I’d like to show you our farm.”

“Oh, yes,” Megan said. She reached again for her coat.

“Where’s Farley?” Emma asked. “He is planning to stay for supper, isn’t he?”

“I invited him,” Ben answered, “but he was in a hurry to get home.” He shook his head. “It’s funny, but I get the feeling that there’s something on that man’s mind.”

“What?” Emma asked.

“If I knew, I’d tell you,” Ben said with a chuckle. “Come on, Megan. Ready?”

Megan eagerly fumbled at the last buttons on her coat. She ran to keep up with Ben as he strode toward the barn, Lady waddling alongside. The large doors were shut, so Megan followed Ben up a stone step and through a small doorway that opened over a high sill.

The barn stood empty except for a lean brown rooster who squawked loud complaints, angrily flapping past
them. “That’s Goliath,” Ben said. “He has the run of the place and thinks he owns it all.”

“Does he live here in the barn?”

“No, he shares the coop behind the barn with the other chickens.”

Megan had stepped aside to give Goliath plenty of room. “Does he bite?” she asked.

“Bite, no. Peck, yes. He might try to frighten you by rushing at you with his wings flapping. Just pick up a stick or something to wave in his face and yell at him with a voice a little louder than his own. He’ll turn and run, the coward that he is.”

Megan smiled. “I don’t know much about any kind of animal,” she said.

“Then this is a good place to learn,” Ben told her. He pointed out some of the pieces of equipment in the barn, then led her through a wide door at the far end that opened into a corral.

“Oh,” Megan said. “There are Jay and Jimbo.” The horses were busy eating at the trough. As she watched them, a shadow suddenly fell across her shoulders, and Megan turned to see a monstrous hairy face with two horns. Its gigantic eyes and snuffling nose were just a few inches from her own.

Megan screamed and stumbled backward, tripping and landing with a thump on the ground. The face—which belonged to some kind of large animal—followed her down, huge eyes staring, and Megan screamed again. Lady ran between the animal and Megan, barking furiously.

Ben grabbed one of the animal’s horns and tugged it away. The animal backed and turned, nonchalantly swaying to the opposite side of the corral, and Ben lifted Megan to her feet. “That’s just Rosie, our cow,” he said. “She won’t hurt you.”

Megan, embarrassed, tried to brush off her skirt. “A cow, is it?” she asked. “I saw cows from the train, but none as huge as that.”

“They’d be the size of Rosie if you saw them up close,” Ben said. “Rosie’s a gentle soul. She’s just curious.”

“Too curious for her own good.”

Ben laughed. “Before long you’ll take Rosie for granted. Tomorrow, if you like, I’ll teach you to milk her.”

Megan studied Rosie for a moment, then nodded. “I think I’d like that, if Rosie wouldn’t mind.”

“We won’t bother to ask her,” Ben said. “It’s best just to tell Rosie what to do, so she won’t think she’s got more say-so than any cow ought to have.”

Lady rubbed against Megan’s legs, and Megan stooped to scratch behind her ears and under her chin. “Thank you for protecting me,” Megan murmured. Lady looked up at her with such devotion that Megan had to hug her, rubbing her chin against the top of Lady’s head.

“Lady will want to come with us when we walk to the river,” Ben said, so Megan hopped up and followed him from the corral. As Ben had said, Lady was right at their heels.

Not far from the privy was a mound of earth high enough to have a door and one window in it. “What is that?” Megan asked.

“A root cellar now,” Ben said. “A place to store the potatoes and vegetables in the winter, and a place to go for safety from tornadoes in the spring.” Ben glanced down at her. Before she could ask, he explained, “Big windstorms. When a tornado comes, the safest place to be is underground. By the time tornado season gets here, you’ll know all about what to do when you see a tornado coming.”

Megan shook her head. “I don’t want to see a tornado,” she said.

“No one does, but they’re a fact of life out here.”

“Did you build the root cellar to get away from tornadoes or to store food?”

“We built it as a place to live,” Ben said. “That was our home when Emma and I first claimed this land.”

“You lived underground?” Megan shuddered.

“It wasn’t that bad.” Ben smiled at Megan’s embarrassment. “Many of the folks who come here live in dugouts until they prosper enough to build a sod house or a log house like ours.”

As they passed a small garden at the back of the house, Ben pointed out a few squash and pumpkins half-hidden among the wide-leafed, scraggly vines. “The last of the fall vegetables,” he said. “In the early spring, we’ll dig the ground and plant row after row of new vegetables.” He swung his left arm in an arc, indicating the surrounding land. “Someday,” he said, “this will be planted in wheat. I know this is good land for wheat, and there are farmers to the east who have been successful with it.”

“Then why don’t you grow wheat now?”

“Wheat needs enough water to nourish it, and these last few years have been dry. Seed costs money, and it takes time and care, as well as enough land, to make the seed grow. I was able to bring water to my cornfield, but so far I haven’t thought of a way to carry enough river water to a prairie to make it bloom.”

Ben fell silent for a while. Megan strode after him. The soft stalks of the tall grass whipped at her dress, and their dusty fragrance pricked her nostrils. She plucked the tip off one of the grasses, its already-browning buds purple and red and deep gold, and tickled it against her chin. Wouldn’t little Peg and Petey love to play in this grass, which was tall enough to hide in? She could
almost see them racing past her, laughing and shrieking, “I tagged you! You’re it!”

Ben stopped short, and Megan broke quickly from her daydream. They were standing on a low bluff, looking down at what remained of a cornfield, dried stalks gathered in piles. Beyond the cornfield was a narrow stream that trickled down the center of a scooped-out rocky bed. On the bank of the river were clusters of the pale golden trees Megan had seen from her window. In many places their gnarled roots rose from the rocks, stretching wide.

“The trees look as if they’re reaching for the water,” Megan said.

“That’s exactly what they’re doing,” Ben answered. “As you can see, this land won’t support many trees. That’s why so many people live in sod houses. Like Farley Haskill.”

He pointed to a spot across the river.

Megan couldn’t see Mr. Haskill’s house until a ray of sunlight reflected off the single window by the front door. The house had been cut into the bluff overlooking the riverbank, and the only part that looked like a house was the wooden front—about eight feet wide at the most, she guessed. Built into the house front was a wooden door with a string hanging out of the latch.

“He lives in the ground, just like you did,” Megan said in wonder.

“You’ll see the inside when we visit Farley someday,” Ben said. “The rooms are large enough, but they’re dark, and the snakes and rats like to sneak in out of the heat when they get a chance. When Farley has made his farm more successful, he’ll be eager to build a real house out of logs, as we have.”

“He lives all by himself,” Megan said. “He must be lonely.”

“Farley’s never said so, but I suppose he might be,” Ben answered. “He comes by our place now and then, and Emma often takes him bread from the oven or fresh vegetables.”

“Even though his house is mostly made of dirt, it looks very tidy on the outside,” Megan said. “I like that bush with the bright yellow flowers that’s growing next to the front door.”

“Goldenrod.” Ben spoke absentmindedly, rubbing his chin. “I knew something looked different. It’s that goldenrod. It’s been planted recently, and you’re right. The yard has been cleared.”

“Mr. Haskill lives very close to the river.”

“Too close,” Ben said. “I warned Farley about the mosquitoes, but he’d settled in this spot even before we arrived. This was his home, and he wasn’t about to change it. He said he’d had one bout of the fever and wasn’t likely to have another, although there’s always the danger.”

Megan studied the small, almost hidden spot dug in the earth and said, “ ‘If Mr. Haskill’s in danger, to my way of thinking it would be from pure loneliness.”

A
FTER A SUPPER
of corn bread, fried bacon, and buttered squash, Ben took his two rifles from the rack on the wall and began to clean them. Megan—still rosy from a warm bath and wrapped in her nightshift and one of Emma’s soft robes—curled on a chair as Emma opened a book, holding it to the lamplight, and began to read a tale about a lion and a mouse:

“Huh!” Megan said. “That lion had a very high opinion of himself. I hope the mouse got clear away from him and never came back.”

Emma blinked with surprise. “Wait. I haven’t finished the story.” She read on, about the lion being caught in a hunter’s net and the mouse gnawing through the net to
set the lion free. “The lesson we should learn is never to belittle smaller things,” she read and turned to Megan with a smile.

“Yes,” Megan said, “but I do wish that the lion had told the mouse he was sorry for putting his nose in the air and trying to be so high and mighty. The lion’s the one who should have learned a lesson.”

“Perhaps the storyteller assumed that the lion had.”

“Who was this storyteller?”

“A man named Aesop, who lived many, many years ago. Did you like the story, Megan?”

Megan thought a moment. “Yes, I did. But it was very different from the stories Ma and Da used to tell us. Their Irish stories were grand, with battles and magic and fiery pookas so frightening we’d shiver down to our toes. I don’t think this Mr. Aesop was Irish, was he?”

Emma smiled. “As a matter of fact, he wasn’t. But I hope you’ll like his fables. We can read the rest of the book together.”

Megan had already told Emma she couldn’t read, because Emma had talked about reading practically the first moment they met. But she still felt embarrassed. “Frances and Mike learned to read easily,” she blurted out, “but I didn’t take to it the way they did.”

Emma patted Megan’s shoulder and smiled. “You’re a bright girl, Megan, and you’ll soon be reading as well as your brother and sister. Do you know any of your letters?”

“Y-yes. Those I know.”

“Very well.” Emma pointed to a word. “Tell me the letters in this word.”

“
M
and
e
.”

“Every letter has a sound of its own.
Mmmmm
is the
m
sound. You say it.”