Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie Read online

  This book about a journey is dedicated, with deep appreciation, to the outstanding editors who have guided and encouraged me along my own journey as a writer:

  Jeff Fairbanks, Charlie Ferrell, Scott Gray, Regina Griffin, Karen Grove, Tracy Mack, Ann Reit, Art Seidenbaum, and Elinor Williams; most especially to my literary agent and friend, Barbara Markowitz.

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Booneville, Missoura, 1847

  January 15, 1847, Friday

  January 20, 1847, Wednesday

  February 2, 1847, Tuesday

  February 3, 1847, Wednesday

  February 5, 1847, Friday

  February 7, 1847, Sunday

  February 9, 1847, Tuesday

  February 18, 1847, Thursday

  March 4, 1847, Thursday

  March 15, 1847, Monday, Aboard the Steamboat Eliza May

  March 16, Tuesday

  March 25, Thursday, Independence, Missoura

  March 30, Tuesday

  April 5, Monday

  April 6, Tuesday

  April 7, Wednesday

  April 12, Monday

  April 14, Wednesday

  April 22, Thursday, Alcove Spring

  April 25, Sunday

  April 27, Tuesday

  April 2?, Wednesday, I think

  Next day

  Another day

  Three days later

  Next day

  Two days later

  May 10, Monday

  Next day

  Another day

  Next day

  I don’t know what day this is

  Ash Hollow

  Next day

  Another day

  Last week in May, thereabouts

  Chimney Rock

  Scott’s Bluff

  Fort Laramie

  Early June

  Register Cliff

  Next day

  A hot afternoon

  Mid-June

  Independence Rock

  Another day

  Another day

  Along the Sweetwater

  South Pass

  End of June, Pacific Creek

  Sandy Creek

  Early July

  July 7, Wednesday, Fort Bridger

  Next day

  Sheep Rock

  Two days later

  Fort Hall

  Next day

  Another day

  Along the Snake River

  August 1, 1847

  Thousand Springs

  Still along the Snake River

  Fort Boise

  Still Fort Boise

  Before Breakfast

  Blue Mountains

  Next day

  The Dalles

  Willamette Valley

  Mid-October, Oregon City, here we are!

  October 22, 1847, Friday

  October 24, 1847, Sunday

  December 23, 1847, Thursday

  Christmas, 1847

  Epilogue

  Life in America in 1847

  Historical Note

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Other books in the Dear America series

  Copyright

  Booneville, Missoura

  January 15, 1847, Friday

  Sleet and rain.

  Ma said that because today is my birthday I may have two slices of chocolate cake. So I did! After supper she gave me a blue satin ribbon for my braid, then when Pa went to bed she let me unwrap another gift. It was a camisole with a matching lace petticoat. Since I’m now thirteen years of age, Ma said it’s proper for me to have pretty underthings.

  Aunt June agreed, then she gave me this journal. She said every young lady must have a place to record her private thoughts. I will try to do so.

  January 20, 1847, Wednesday

  Still raining. Our roof is leaking upstairs over the hallway and in my room by the foot of my bed. I’ve moved the pot there to catch the drips.

  I hide this diary under my pillow, but take it out often to look at. I love the smell of its coarse paper and have decided to use my new hair ribbon as a bookmark. The blue looks pretty lying across the page.

  February 2, 1847, Tuesday

  Three nights ago my poor uncle Milton fell off our roof while he was helping Pa fix a leak. He died right there in the barnyard, there was nothing we could do.

  His funeral was today, one of the most interesting days in a very long time. It all started when his coffin fell out the side of our hay wagon and slid down the bank into the river.

  Ma held the horses while Pa went after the coffin through the mud and weeds. I hurried after Pa, but my skirt caught in the brush. He grabbed the coffin and had his arms around it to haul it up, but just then a St. Louis steamboat rounded the bend with its big paddles churning up the water and making waves higher than Pa’s head. He held on tight, but all of a sudden he floated out into those waves like a cork, me and Ma screaming for help.

  Some folks on the top deck yelled until the captain pulled the whistle long and loud. Pa was being sucked into those tall white paddles when someone threw him a rope and pulled him aboard just in time.

  We watched the coffin go under. Some moments later it popped free, its lid gone and Uncle Milton, too. Where he went, we don’t know, but this is how we came to be acquainted with the riverboat captain who felt so sorry for us that he said he’d take us anywhere we pleased, no charge.

  “Anywheres?” Pa asked, as he stomped the water out of his boots.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “Anywhere.”

  This very evening Pa made a shocking announcement: He said that because of the captain’s kindness we can now afford to take a riverboat up to Independence, where the Oregon Trail begins. We will take on board our old wagon and our belongings. We will buy some mules in that town, then we will head West.

  Just like that.

  Ma’s mouth dropped open, but no words came out. She was so mad I suspect the next funeral will be my pa’s.

  February 3, 1847, Wednesday

  Wind blowing through this creaky old house kept me awake most of the night, so here I am in my shawl, looking out the little window by my bed, trying to stay warm. Since my room is in the attic it stays cold until Ma opens the stair door. My fingers are numb, so I will write quick.

  I can hear Ma downstairs frying up bacon and putting coffee on. She did not speak to Pa the rest of yesterday, nor has she this morning, for all I hear is silence after Pa’s questions.

  When Ma gets mad, she stays mad a long time.

  February 5, 1847, Friday

  Three days have gone by with Ma only speaking to me, my little brothers, and Aunt June. Finally at supper tonight she looked at Pa and said, “Charles Campbell, Oregon is two thousand miles away.”

  Pa nodded. He seemed so relieved to have Ma talking again. She said, “Tell me why, Charles, and I will tell you yes or no.”

  My, it was a long evening. I took up the plates and set to washing them with Jake. He is six and likes to splash the water, but still he is a help. Bennie’s two so he stayed on Ma’s knee while she listened to Pa.

  Pa said he’d been unhappy about so many people settling here in Missoura. It’s crowded. Taxes are high. And there’s swamp fever that kills folks
every summer.

  At the mention of swamp fever Pa grew quiet. He swallowed hard, then looked at Ma with tears in his eyes. In a soft voice he said her name: “Augusta,” he said, “we’ll be able to start a new life, where there ain’t no sad memories. There’s space out West, all the land we want. Free for the taking. Winters are mild, that’s what these pamphlets say.”

  He held up a booklet called The Emigrants’ Guide, to Oregon and California by Lansford W. Hastings, and another by the explorers John C. Frémont and Kit Carson.

  I took my candle upstairs. I’m not sure if Ma said yes or no, but I’m happy to once again hear them whispering together in their room.

  February 7, 1847, Sunday

  We have given up hope of finding Uncle Milton’s body. So today in church folks took turns walking up to the pulpit to say a few kind words. My friend Becky, she’s exactly my age, she sang a hymn so sweet all the ladies dabbed hankies to their cheeks.

  Afterward my aunt June and uncle Tim came in a freezing rain and we sat together in front of the fire. I served up coffee and two peach pies made from last summer’s preserves. My, it was delicious. When they said they wanted to come to Oregon, too, well, Mama smiled for the first time in days for Aunt June is her dear younger sister. (It was their brother, Milton, that died.)

  February 9, 1847, Tuesday

  Word spreads fast in a small town. Everyone’s talking about Oregon and California.

  Becky says she would positively perish from loneliness if I left Booneville, which is where we were born and have lived our whole lives. “Please don’t go, Hattie,” she said. “If you leave Missoura, we may never see each other again.” I feel sad when Becky talks so.

  It’s pretty much divided down the middle who thinks which is the best place to go to.

  Pa said that since California is like a foreign country and we don’t speak Spanish we best head for Oregon. It’s occupied by the British, but at least those folks speak English.

  Our new president is James Polk. Pa says the only reason he won the election is because he promised to make Oregon and California territories of the United States. So if enough of us get up and go, it’ll help push the foreigners aside for good.

  It’s our “Manifest Destiny,” according to President Polk. It’s our responsibility to spread democracy all the way to the Pacific coast.

  Ma was at her mending this morning, in the window seat where the light is good. I sat on the little stool with the embroidered cushion. When I looked up, I saw she was crying.

  “What is it, Mama?”

  She lifted the hem of her apron to dry her cheeks. “Hattie, I don’t care about ‘Manifest Destiny.’ The West is wilderness. It’ll be a frightfully long journey with no turning back. All our dear friends live in Booneville, and besides, I don’t think I can bear to leave behind your sisters.”

  I lay my face on Ma’s lap. She was talking about my four sweet sisters, three older, one younger. Last summer — the most horrible summer of our lives — they died one right after the other, from swamp fever, and they are buried next to my grandparents under the big walnut tree out back.

  I am now the eldest of the Campbell children. I am thirteen years of age and am afraid of only four things in the whole world.

  1. Indians

  2. copperhead snakes

  3. a toothache

  4. losing my little brothers, Ben and Jake, they’re all I got now

  February 18, 1847, Thursday

  Yesterday Aunt June received another letter from her friend Narcissa Whitman, who went to Oregon ten years ago. Her husband is Dr. Marcus Whitman and they have founded a mission near Fort Walla Walla to help the Cayuse Indians. Aunt June had us to tea; Becky, too. She let us girls pour and pass around the scones and butter so that she could read the letter aloud. This much I remember:

  There is tall timber and soil so rich a farm can grow overnight it seems. June, you’ll see how fair is the climate. If I can cross the Rockies, any lady can.

  Aunt June folded the letter into her sleeve. She said Narcissa and Eliza Spalding were the first white women to travel all the way to Oregon. There’ve been hundreds since, hundreds. We could visit her, maybe even stay awhile since Narcissa’s been begging us to come for years.

  Aunt June is not at all sad to leave Booneville. She thinks everything is an adventure and (I’m writing this in tiny letters so no one can read over my shoulder) she confided to me that the way their brother Milton’s coffin went sailing down the Missoura was “Splendid! The best amusement in months.”

  Aunt June and I think alike.

  March 4, 1847, Thursday

  Two weeks of packing and sewing and cooking and repacking. We leave aboard the riverboat Eliza May, in just ten days.

  TEN DAYS!

  Pa sold our house and our chickens, our three horses and our cow to a neighbor for $65 — this plus $800 is what we’ll take to Oregon. (Having free tickets is what finally gave Pa the courage to say we’re going.)

  Every evening we visit with friends or relations for supper and tearful good-byes. Suddenly I realize how much I shall miss Becky — we have known each other since we were babies and when we walk together down the lane I get a terrible lump in my throat knowing we’ll soon be parted. She is my very best friend ever.

  Pa is ready to get going, but Ma is gathering keepsakes from each friend and packets of seeds saved from their gardens. One whole trunk is filled with my sisters’ things — a favorite doll and dress each, baby knits and such — Ma’s wedding dress and my grandparents’ Bible and washbasin.

  Pa said, “Are you sure we need all this?” Ma, tight-lipped and teary, said nothing. She just kept on folding quilts and tucking a china dish or bowl or picture frame between the folds.

  I am allowed a small satchel. There is space for a folded dress, leggings, my hairbrush, two petticoats, and this-and-that. My journal will fit in the side pocket with three pencils. Aunt June says I must record things daily — the good and the bad — because this will be the adventure of my lifetime.

  “Hattie, whether you realize it or not, we will be part of history.”

  March 15, 1847, Monday

  Aboard the Steamboat Eliza May

  We are fifteen miles west of Booneville, finally. Our first day out we got stuck on a sandbar until the tide floated us off.

  I am sitting on a bench on the top deck and can see all around for miles. There are trees everywhere and tiny houses along dirt roads.

  There is such a breeze up here that I’ve had to tie my bonnet tight under my chin. I am writing quick because I must get back to help Ma with Bennie and Jake. If I lean over the rail I can see them on the lower deck among our baggage. Pa and the other men are tightening ropes around the wagons, for they were taken apart before loading. Nearby, our wagon wheels are stacked like hotcakes.

  Already I’m lonesome for Becky.

  March 16, Tuesday

  The Eliza May is packed with travelers, some from clear down in Kentucky and Tennessee, who’ve been aboard for days and days. A lady in the cabin next to us was sick all night, but it turns out she was just having a baby. It was born at sunrise, a tiny little girl they named Eliza May.

  I ain’t never heard of a baby being named after a riverboat. The mother and father already have five young daughters and they are all named after trees! I wonder if the family will fit in one wagon all the way to Oregon.

  I write this from my berth. An oil lamp gives light as Ma changes Bennie for bed. Jake is tucked in with Pa, and even though Pa is snoring, Jake keeps asking questions about Indians and scalpings, buffalo, and other things he wants to see out West. He’s as ready for our adventure as I am.

  There . . . I’ve just covered him up and whispered a prayer to him. He fell fast asleep before I finished. Ma is so tired.

  March 25, Thursday

  Indepen
dence, Missoura

  Pa said there must be 500 folks living here, and that don’t count all the emigrants like us roaming the streets, buying last-minute supplies, repairing wagons, and just plain getting ready. There are blacksmiths, harness makers, and wheelwrights busy morning and night.

  After we docked it took one full day and evening for men to unload the Eliza May. First thing Pa and Uncle Tim did was put the wheels back on our wagons, load our trunks, furniture, and tools, then find a boy who could help us buy some mules.

  I am writing this on my lap by the campfires as I keep an eye on Ma’s roasting chicken. It is on a low spit over the coals we’re sharing with another family. Behind me are the houses and barns and stores and streets of Independence.

  But in front of me, it’s open prairie, miles and miles of grass spread out like Ma’s old yellow quilt. There are dozens of families with tents and wagons also camped here, looking westward.

  Pa says we are waiting for the grass to green-up. When there is green grass, why then we’ll be able to feed the horses and other animals pulling us west.

  Pa is patient, but I ain’t. The stench from there being no outhouses gets worse every day. Oh, I wish we could just get on with things.

  March 30, Tuesday

  Rain. Roads are so muddy most of the emigrants are staying around their fires in camp. We have made friends with three families who are also bound for Oregon. We hung tarps between the wagon tops and now have a dry space in between where Ma and the other ladies sit with babies and needlework.

  It is no fun just sitting, sitting, sitting. How I wish Becky was here so we could roam together.

  There are many boys my age and older. They have made a sport of shoving each other into puddles and wrestling in the mud. Four boys jumped on the back of a poor old milk cow and tried to ride her through camp. When her calf came bawling after her there was near a stampede.