money what was left.”
“You had that much left over? What did you pay for the wagon?”
“Ninety dollars. Not for the wagon. For the wagon and the team.”
“Only ninety dollars! Mourning, you’re a genius! You see! A lucky beginning
like this is a sure sign that everything’s going to be all right!” Then she lowered
her voice and asked, “Did you have any problems?”
“That white man took them gold coins out a my colored hand just fine.”
“See! Didn’t I tell you Michigan is a grand place?”
She silently thanked God for Mourning, imagining how awful it would have
been to arrive here alone. How on earth would she have found some stranger to
hire? Even if she did, anyone but Mourning could have walked off with her
money and disappeared. Or claimed to have paid much more for the wagon and
pocketed the difference.
“Well, let’s get going.” Olivia’s energy returned and she hurried back up the
gangplank to help Mourning haul their things down. On their last trip back to the
wagon she stopped to thank the man in the black jacket and impulsively planted
a kiss on his cheek. “I’m going to have my own farm,” she informed him,
beaming proudly.
“Better you than me,” he called after her with a grin.
“I already been in a few stores,” Mourning said, after they finished loading their cases onto the wagon. “I seen a big difference in prices, so we gotta go
’round a few times. I been in four different stores ’fore I bought that stuff.” He
nodded at the back of the wagon.
So that was how they spent a long and tedious day. Atwater was the only
street that had been paved with stone, so they were glad for the red cushion on
the seat. A few streets were strewn with a haphazard covering of thin rounds of
cedar, but when Olivia commented to one of the storekeepers on how pretty they
were, he spat into a barrel and said. “Them dang things ain’t no use at all. Make
it bumpier when it’s dry and first good rain, they up and float away.”
Between checking their purchases against their lists, keeping track of the
different prices as they went from store to store, and fretting about the trip ahead
of them and how on earth they were going to find one tiny little cabin in all those
woods out there, the day passed in a blur. They had a few arguments, as when Olivia emerged from a store and called Mourning in to carry two mattresses out
to the wagon. He looked at her as if she’d gone loony.
“Mattresses! We don’t got to be buyin’ no mattresses. We get some canvas,
sew it over double, fill it with hay.”
“Really? Exactly where do you think you’re going to get hay out there?” She
could tell from the look on his face that he hadn’t thought of that. They both found it hard to fully comprehend – they were headed for a new home where one
had to assume there was nothing. None of the things a person normally takes for granted.
“So we use grass or weeds. Leaves maybe.”
“Look, I know you think I’m a spoiled child, but we won’t be able to work very hard if we can’t get a good night’s sleep. I don’t think two store-bought mattresses are such a great extravagance.”
