Also, they knew her. They knew she was not to be lightly had by any man, and they found her stand-offish when they came courting with marriage in mind. She felt no real regret for what she was leaving behind, other than the fact that she was leaving all that was familiar, all that she had known. She was leaving the familiar fields and trees, the school where she had learned to read, write, and work sums, the house where she knew every board that creaked, and could tell how the fireplace would act on clear or cloudy days, or when the wind was strong.
Inwardly she shrank from the dust, the coal smoke, and the confusion of Albany. The green fields of her upstate home had been fresh and cool. They had been home—but they were home no longer.
The farm had been sold. Other feet trod the boards of the house now, and it was just as well. She felt that there was nothing for her. “You dream too much!” Her father often told her that in his half-irritated yet affectionate way, and it was true. Now her dreams lay westward, somewhere down the Ohio.
She knew only vaguely where the Ohio River lay, or the lands to which they were going, those uncertain lands, theirs for the taking, which no one had seen. Her father had not even seen a map, if any existed. All they had seen was some scratchings in the dirt near the back stoop as a drifter traced with a stick the course of the Ohio River and pointed out the lands that lay open to taking. The Ohio country was the wild west, the wilderness. And that was where they were going.
For several years now she had been hearing that name … the Ohio … until it was burned into her consciousness. Men talked of it as they talked of the Promised Land.
Nearby a bearded man talked knowingly of the Missouri and the Platte, of keelboating and the fur trade. He was talking to two drunken Carialers about the Indians in the wild lands along those rivers. She had never heard of either of those distant rivers—the Ohio was far enough west for her. A self-contained girl, she quietly watched the movement about her, but her thoughts were far away in that yet unknown Ohio country. If she had met no one here, how could she expect to find anyone out there where there were even fewer people? More than one of her friends had settled for less than they wanted. When a girl passed eighteen she began to feel a little desperate. Her face, though, showed none of the thoughts that was held tightly within her. Her sister Lilith, slender, pretty, and sixteen, turned swiftly and came to her side. “Oh, isn’t it exciting, Eve? But I don’t understand why we have to go west. Why can’t we stay here?”
“Pa’s a farmer. He’s got to go where there’s land to be taken. Besides, you’d soon find this very dull. Things are only exciting until you get used to them, until you know their pattern, and then it all becomes humdrum.” “But don’t you ever want to do anything different? Eve, I just don’t understand you at all!”
“Why should you? Sometimes I think you don’t even understand yourself.” Lilith glanced quickly at her sister. “But you do, don’t you? I mean, you know what you want, and everything. I wish I did.” Her brow furrowed. “Eve, I don’t know what’s the matter with me. All I know is that I don’t—I just don’t want any of this … of the farm, either.” She looked out over the crowded river. “Am I bad? Or just a fool? I mean, I dream about so many things … impossible things.”
“Are they impossible, Lil? If you can dream of them, maybe they are possible.
And in the meantime they help you to be happy. It helps … I know it helps.” “It’s easier for you. You know what you want. You want a man, and you even know the kind of man … and you want a home. That … that isn’t what I want at all. Not for a while, at least.”
“I know.”
“Eve … what if you never find him? After all, you’re twenty and an—“ “And an old maid?” Eve smiled. “Don’t be afraid to say it, Lil. But I know I’ll find him. I just know I shall.”
A shrill, piping whistle came from a boat on the river, and then a blast from the horn of a canal boat. The boat reversed its wheels and the water flew. “It isn’t a place that makes you happy or unhappy, Lil, it’s the people you love, and who love you.”
“Ma says I’m flighty. Do you think I am, Eve?”
“No.” Eve paused. “You’re different from us, Lil, but in your own way you’re just as steady. I never did see anybody catch on to the accordion the way you did … Pa says you take after Aunt Mae.”
“The one who ran off with a gambler? Pa has never said any such thing to me! Why, he would never even mention her name in front of us! Whatever happened to her, Eve? Was she awfully unhappy?”
Just then their brother Sam, a lean, husky young man of nineteen, with a quick, easy smile, came strolling up from the river and paused alongside of Zeke, who was lying on their rolled-up bedding. “It will be soon now,” he said. “How are you, Zeke?”
Zeke opened his eyes abruptly. “I ain’t half as poorly as ma makes out. If she’d stop spooning that medicine into me, I think I’d get well.” Eve’s eyes went from her brother to her parents. Zebulon and Rebecca Prescott looked every inch of what they were—sturdy, independent farmer folk … and pioneers. At first her mother had objected to leaving a home that was becoming more comfortable year by year; but once their decision had been made, the excitement had taken hold of her too.
Zebulon’s best argument was a good one. They were not getting rich where they were, which was not important, for they lived well, but there was no land for the boys—not for more than one of them, at least. Suddenly there was a surge in the crowd about them and over the confusion they heard a voice proclaiming: “The Pride of Utica, now loading! All a-boarrrd for the Pride of Utica! The Ramsey family … the Peter Smiths … John and Jacob Voorhies … L. P. Baker … the Stoeger family, all eight of them … all a-boarrrd for the Pride of Utica.”
“We’re next, pa,” Sam said, stooping to lift a trunk to his shoulder. “We’d best move down to the shore.”
A gaunt Scotsman in a faded homespun shirt let his glance fall to Zeke, who was struggling up from his temporary couch. “The boy’s health your reason for goin’ west, Prescott?”
“Partly … only partly. Mostly,” Zebulon said gravely, “our trouble was rocks.
Why, there’d be years when we’d crop a hundred bushels of rocks to the acre.”
“Now, Zebulon, you shouldn’t lie to the man like that. Ours was good land.” “Lie? Now, Rebecca, you know I’m a God-fearing man, and I’d not lie. I tell the truth as I see it. Why, in that country where we lived a man never used a plow. He just blasted out the furrows with gun powder. “Time came it was too much for me. When I hauled the bucket out of the well, even that was full of rocks, and I says to myself, ‘Zeb, here you be with an ailin’ son an’ a twenty-year-old daughter who won’t take to herself a husband—“ “Pa! How you do go on!”
“—and another daughter who acts like she ain’t just right in the head,’ so I just made myself a vow. If I could find a man who had five hundred dollars there’d be another fool ownin’ that farm. Well, sir, the Good Lord provided such a man and here we are!”
“Mr. Harvey,” Rebecca protested, “don’t you believe a word of it. We had the best farm in the county. It was pa’s itching foot that brought us to this, and heaven knows where we’ll end up.”
“I’m headed for Illinois,” Harvey replied, “and folks say there are grown men out there who have never seen a rock.”
He gestured toward the three hulking young men who lurked nearby, staring hungrily at the girls. “These are my boys, Angus, Brutus, and Colin. I think they want to become acquainted with your daughters.” “Single, I take it.”
Harvey nodded. “So far … but they’re girlin’.” “That Illinois country sounds good to me. Lilith, take up your accordion an’ strike up a tune for the lads.”
“I ain’t in the mood, pa.”
“Lilith,” her father said sternly, “there’s a time for coaxin’, but this here ain’t it. You play something.”