Free Gone West by Kathleen Karr

too.”
     
    “I learned it from my Indian friends in Independence.” Maggie watched Hazel’s eyes widen in surprise. “If you’ve got a length of extra canvas and a few sticks I could fix you up the same.”
     
    “Would you? I’d be indebted, and that’s the truth!”
     
    “Sure you don’t mind a little learning from the `heathen’?” teased Maggie gently.
     
    Hazel grunted. “Sounds like you’ve met up with that parson Winslow. Beats me how a slew of Christians can send someone so full of himself out to the missions. Plenty of decent ministers back home don’t look down their noses at every blessed soul. And the ways he’s been going on about Mormons to any that’ll listen! He’d have my eyes turned round clear to my back if I hadn’t already decided to swallow less than half of what he says.”
     
    Maggie laughed. “I think we’re going to be friends, Hazel.”
     
    “Don’t see why not. We seem to be close to the same age and all. We got youngsters the same, and husbands with wanderlust the same. There’s a lot we could share. I just did for the cows, so why don’t I get you a nice cup of milk?
     
    When the Kreller family took their turn at the ferry, baby Irene was trussed up on her mother’s back like Charlotte. Maggie stood watching, heart in throat, as her new friends helped to ease their wagon onto the frail-looking raft and climbed aboard. Hazel shaded her eyes to wave at Maggie.
     
    “See you ‘tother side. Come round for some more milk after you make it!”
     
    Maggie waved harder. It would be their own turn soon. She looked round for Johnny. He’d finally wearied of watching the proceedings and was comfortably ensconced under a nearby tree reading a book as if nothing were happening. Jamie raced up and screeched to a halt.
     
    “May I have a book, too, Ma? The girls are gone across. The Richmans with Jube, they’ve gone, too. There’s no one to play with.”
     
    Maggie motioned toward a group of wan children scrabbling in the muddy wagon ruts nearby. “What about them?”
     
    Jamie shook his head deprecatingly. “They’re Winslows. You know their pa don’t ‘llow them to mix.”
     
    Maggie sighed. “You’re way behind on your lessons anyway.”
     
    “It’s not lessons I’m after. I’ve memorized enough poems through this past deluge to last me forever. Pa says we’re on sabbatical after all. I’m looking for something adventurous!”
     
    “Poems are fun. You can’t ever memorize enough of them. You’ll not be avoiding your serious lessons for the whole trip, my boy. Take those multiplication tables, for instance~”
     
    “I’d rather leave ‘em, Ma.”
     
    “Jamie. Three times nine.”
     
    “Umm.” He stood twitching his fingers, obviously counting up on them. “Twenty-six?”
     
    “My point in a nutshell.” Maggie shook her head. “I’ll have to talk to your father about this. And as for that adventure nonsense. It seems to me there could be few things more adventurous than what you’ve been watching here all day.”
     
    “It palls after a while, it does. A person like me needs excitement every minute!”
     
    “Young man, I was never entertained every moment of my childhood. In fact, I can’t remember ever being entertained.”
     
    “It couldn’t have been that bad on the farm, Ma.”
     
    “I guess it wasn’t, at that,” Maggie laughed. Her eyes went from Jamie right over to the far side of the Kansas River without seeing it. Not after Johnny started coming each year to their cabin with his father and their books. She thought again of her parents left behind on their parcel of land near the banks of the Ohio River. Her mild-mannered, sweet mother; her stern, red-headed father whose only peace was found in constant work and regular readings of the scripture; her three brothers and sister. It seemed too long since she’d laid eyes on them.
     
    “Is it all right, Ma?” Jamie brought her back to the