Free Impatient With Desire by Gabrielle Burton

don’t feel comfortable with this weather.”
     
    Yes, I’m right, I raged inside, and it’s wrong that the women don’t have a vote, he knows that.
    I knew if I spoke, I would say ugly things.
    I lay there angry and afraid.

Jan 18th 1847
    W hen I think about Lansford Hastings now, I feel almost detached, someplace in these terrible months his shoulders grown too weak to bear full responsibility for this nightmare.
    We prepared carefully. That is some consolation to us. Information about ’44 was widely available, and the great successes of ’45 continued to filter back. Scarcely a week went by in our months of planning without another newspaper dispatch come directly from the new country, and I would be surprised if more than a half dozen of the scores of letters scribbled by those already en route escaped our eager eyes. Allen Francis brought each letter to our reading circle before he even published them in the paper.
    Our eagerness was always tempered with prudence, because we of ’46 were the first families on the Trail.
    It’s strange, Betsey. Things I hardly thought about in the rush of those days come back now, the smallest detail etched clearly, as if it had been stowed somewhere carelessly in haste to emerge slowly and completely in confinement.
    February 1846 Illinois
    Outside our window, it was snowing heavily. Inside our cozy farmhouse, George piled more wood on the fire, and set the chairs in a semicircle around the hearth. Allen Francis and I were looking through a new book, I can feel the heft of it in my hands thissecond. My sister-in-law, Elizabeth, Elitha, and Leanna put refreshments on the table. They were using my good rose-patterned china. George’s brother, Jacob, was half dozing in an easy chair, as usual.
    “What will you read this week, Mother?” Elitha asked.
    I held up the book, and read its title, “ Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842, and to Oregon and North California in the Years 1843–44 by John Frémont.”
    She wrinkled up her nose.
    “This is history in the making, Elitha.”
    “I’d rather Dickens,” she said.
    Jacob glanced up. “I’d rather my feather bed.”
    “We might fight Indians, Uncle Jacob—” Leanna began excitedly.
    But Jacob had already sunk back, his mouth gaping open. I wanted to shake him, but I concealed my annoyance and said, “Let’s hope not, Leanna. We’ll wait a few minutes more for Mr. and Mrs. Reed—”
    I didn’t see Frances in her nightgown tiptoe to the table, reach for a small cake, and knock off the china cup, but I heard it hit the floor and break.
    “Frances!”
    Now I see her face crumple, but then, I knelt down, picked up the cup and its broken handle, looked at it with distress.
    “You know you’re never supposed to touch my china, Frances. That’s all I have from my mother…”
    Frances started to cry.
    “Crying isn’t going to fix it, Frances,” I said. “Don’t touch my china again.”
    I might have gone on haranguing her, but the door burst open with a whoosh of wind and snow. James Reed waved a book and shouted, “Hastings discovered a shortcut!”
    Behind James, Margret tried in vain to restrain him. “James, your boots. The floor—”
    “No one worries about snow in California, Mrs. Reed,” I said.
    “Hot off the presses!” James said. “We can save three hundred miles!”
    Then everyone gathered round him, talking at once. In all the hubbub, Georgia and Eliza ran out in their nightgowns and yelled happily with everyone else. Even Jacob perked up.

Jan 19th 1847
    T oday was the fourth day we were unable to go outside. Elitha, Leanna, and Frances were huddled by the fireplace, drinking cups of hot water, which I used to call “tea,” until the day Leanna shouted, “It’s only water! Call it water!” I was polishing George’s boots with an ointment we use for oxen udders. Rub and polish, my hand moved methodically, firelight flickering over his trail-worn