Coffin To Lie On (2 page)

Miranda let out a
frustrated sigh. “That's a good question. One I don't have an
answer for right now. Anselm has left it up to me to decide what we
do, because he has the same worries as you do about my
endurance.

I'm not sure I want that
burden on my shoulders, and it bothers me. I can say we stay here
if I want to, but what if we stay behind because of me? If we have
another dry summer, it means we lose what little money this farm
has made us. By then buyers for farm land might not be so
interested. They might try to buy our property dirt
cheap.”

Hildur teared up. “I
understand. You know I vould vorry about you and your mister until
you are settled in dat strange place. For sure, I vill miss helping
you if you move.”

“
Thank you so much. I've appreciated all the
hard work you do around here on my be-half. I'm such a terrible
cook. I know Anselm will miss your good cooking as much as
me.

But don't start worrying
about us leaving yet. We aren't going to decide until spring,”
Miranda assured her.

“
Dank
you. Dat iss good to know.” Hildur slipped her black bonnet on. “I
better start for home and see to my own family's
supper.”

Miranda put her yarn ball
against the swift so it wouldn't roll away. She got up and walked
across to the wall pegs and helped Hildur get her arms in her black
wool coat. “I'll be glad when the days get longer. You be careful
going home in the dark.”

“
I vill.
Once you get to dis big valley, if you go, you please let me know
you and de mister are safe. If I didn't hear from you, I vould
always vorry about vat happened to you,” Hildur
said.

“
Of
course, I promise. As soon as I could, I would write you and my
folks a letter, but Hildur I don't know if we're going yet,”
Miranda assured her.

Ignoring her statement,
Hildur asked, “How long do you expect this trip to
take?”

“
I don't know. I hope it wouldn't take
long,” Miranda said.

So much about this venture was unknown to her.
The length of the trip was just one of her worries, but she doubted
Anselm had the answers.

Chapter 2

As the seasons changed from
winter to early spring, Miranda ingrained in herself memories of
their farm. She'd always been proud of her garden with its
delicious bounty. Her garden would lay fallow this spring. Her
house was one of the nicest in the area. She'd miss her comfortable
home.

She knew she'd miss the
summer months in Minnesota. After Anselm's day was done, he always
rested beside her in their porch rockers. They never grew tired of
listening to the music of the whippoorwills at dusk.

Anselm loved the small
brown birds' songs as much as she did. He was good at whistling a
mocking reply that sent the birds into frenzied
responses.

By the time their
surroundings showed signs of spring, Miranda had done a lot of hard
pondering about the move. She did a tug of war with herself,
wavering against and for the trip. Finally when the trees budded,
she knew it was time to decide. It wasn't fair to keep Anselm
wondering any longer.

She didn't want to hold her
husband back from his dream. Against her better judgment, she made
the decision to go west for the man she loved.

When she told him they
could move west, Anselm was like a young man again. A spring in his
walk returned that had left years before. It made her happy to see
him exuberant, but Miranda couldn't share the way he felt about
leaving the only home she'd known. This area was a safe place where
everything but the weather was predictable. She didn't like heading
west into the unknown.

The one request she made
was that Anselm do some investigating on his own to find out if
Willamette Valley was as great a place to live as Clarence Swensen
made it out to be. He promised to do that for her.

When it came time to sell
the hogs, Anselm felt a pang of sadness hit him as he walked along
with other farmers driving their hogs to the market in Redwing. His
sows were fine stock, because Anselm had spent years breeding his
hogs to be prize winners. Farmers bought their hog stock from him.
He hated to part with them, but he couldn't take them on the
trip.

Anselm butchered off the
laying hens until he had only a dozen hens and one rooster left.
Just the right amount of chickens to crowd in a crate attached to a
covered wagon.

By being careful with his
hay supply and corn, Anselm was able to make it through the winter
with his four work horses, twenty cows, their calves and one
bull.

The farmers weren't sure
how easy it was to find replacement stock for their cattle herds.
They decided to take their stock cattle on the journey. That meant
branding the cattle so they could pick out their own herd when they
arrived in Oregon.

The day the families left
for Redwing to board the paddle boat they would drive the cattle
and load them on the boat for the trip down the Mississippi River.
Once they joined the wagon train encampment at Independence,
Missouri, the cattle would be mixed with the herds belonging to
other travelers. The men had been assured by Clarence Swensen there
was plenty of grazing for cattle and horses as they traveled
west.

By breeding his cows for
winter calving, Anselm's calves were sturdy enough to follow the
cows by spring. He and the other men expected a death loss on the
trip. Even with the loss, they hoped to have stock to build into a
herd once they settled in Willamette Valley.

One evening in late March
after Hildur Landers left for home, Miranda plopped down in one of
the rockers on the cabin porch. She pulled her brown wool cape
tighter around her to ward off the cold and stared at the winter,
star studded sky.

Usually Anselm joined her
after supper for the evening. In the winter, they sat by the fire
in the parlor, but tonight he was busy in the barn. His hammer
pounded loud above the squeaks of her rocker. Imagine at his age,
with a good farm he'd worked so hard to improve, that man decided
to go west and start over. The thought to Miranda was
unbelievable.

She shuddered. It wasn't a
fit night to be outside long. Besides, she wasn’t used to rocking
alone. She’d rather Anselm was beside her, sharing the full moon
and bright star filled evening, but it could only be for a few
minutes. After all, it was still winter.

Finally, Miranda chilled
enough she had to give up rocking. She was ready to go inside and
warm up. She stood and put her hand on the door latch. She paused
to listen to the carpentry sounds. Curious about what her husband
was building, she walked to the barn through the slushy
snow.

In the wavering, yellow
flickers of lantern light, Anselm was bent over a large, wooden
box. Made of pine, it wasn’t square shaped like a bedding box but
long and narrower on one end than the other.

Anselm, are you about ready
to call it a night? You should come in and warm up. It's cold out
here.” A creepy feeling surged through Miranda as she stared at the
box he was building. She couldn't take her eyes off it.

“
I am
almost done. I vill be in soon,” he re-plied without looking
up.

Miranda sounded harsher
than she meant to when she asked, “What are you
building?”

At the curt sound of her
voice, Anselm straightened up so he could look at her. “I am
getting prepared for de trip west.”

“
What’s
the box for?” Miranda asked.

Anselm fiddled with his
hammer. “I dought we could put your fine linens and dishes in it.
Vit a straw tick over de top, it would make you a place to rest in
de wagon when you haf one of your sinking spells.”

“
I see.”
She eyed the box’s tapered end. This wooden box wasn’t like any
storage trunk she’d ever seen. She did like the smell of the
freshly sawed pine, but that was all. “Anselm, the box is shaped
like a coffin.”

Her husband put his hands
on her shoulders as he said flatly, “Ya, dat iss vat it
iss.”

“
I'd rest
just as comfortably with the straw tick on the wagon bed,” Miranda
reasoned. “Why do we need to take a coffin with
us?”

Anselm stared at his
hammer. “Ve need to be practical about des trip. It vas kind of you
to consent to go. I know it vas just to please me, but I know, and
so do you, dat de travel vill be hard on you vit yur weakness.” He
met her eyes. The dire thought put a grieved expression on his
face. He was imagining her dead. “I figured we should be prepared
in de wilderness just in case. Clarence says dere are not many
trees when we get in de plains. No vay to build a good, sturdy box
like dis one. Besides, to stop to build a box might mean I couldn't
keep up with de rest of de wagon train. Dey would leave me.” Her
husband’s voice trailed off as he studied the incredulous
expression on his wife's face.

“
Well,
whatever you think is best,” Miranda agreed feebly. She felt a
sicking knot building in her midsection as she
thought,
Heaven forbid my death be
the cause of Anselm getting left behind.

She had to hurry out of
the barn and get away from her coffin before she had a real sinking
spell. This idea was going to take some getting used to, knowing
that coffin was traveling with them. “It's too cold out here for
me. I need to get back to the
house and
sit down.” At the door, she twisted around. “It’ll be bedtime soon.
Are you coming in?”

“
I will be in shortly,” he said, not looking
in her direction as he raised the hammer over another nail.

Chapter 3

While she waited for Anselm
to come inside, Miranda plopped down in her rocker by the
fireplace. She leaned her head back, closed her eyes and remembered
her girlish dream from all those years ago. She wanted to marry a
wealthy, handsome man.

She came very close to
doing just that. When she met Anselm, he was better off financially
than the other young men in town. He already had a home and a
profitable farm. Anselm was a kind, thoughtful gentleman. She'd
always been glad she picked him. They had been very
happy.

Now she wondered how had
the years gotten away from her so fast? It was twenty years ago
when Swedish born Anselm proposed. Miranda knew she made a good
catch when she accepted his proposal.

The blond, handsome man was
twenty seven, ten years older than her. Everyone knew he was a hard
worker and likeable.

He’d established a paying
farm near Zumbroto and build a nice house and outbuildings. The
farm was considered a show place by all the neighbors.

This mattered to Miranda.
When she was small, her parents moved the family, a son and two
daughters, from a hard scrabble farm in Illinois to
Zumbroto.

Her father, George Wickman,
opened up a mercantile store with a loan from the bank. Because she
was the baby of the family, Miranda grew up a town girl. She was
spoiled rotten by her mother, Jane, and knew not one thing about
farming.

Of course, her parents
seemed pleased when Anselm asked if he could escort Miranda to
church. A few church dates helped him build up his courage. Sunday
evenings, he eat supper with her and her folks, before he asked her
to walk out with him for a stroll in the moonlight. In the summer,
they went on picnics not far from town in a grove of cottonwood by
Mossman's pond. Miranda's mother gladly fixed their
lunches.

On one of those picnics,
Anselm proposed right after her seventeenth birthday. Miranda said
yes. One evening, Anselm, dressed in his Sunday suit, came to town.
He asked her father for permission to marry his
daughter.

Her parents were thrilled
to have a man with a successful farm marry their youngest daughter.
It didn't hurt her parents found the man as likeable as Miranda
did.

Before the wedding, her
mother had one bit of advice for Miranda. Jane Wickman said in her
bitter edged voice that Miranda should take the word of someone who
knew about working on a farm. Drudgery would make an old woman out
of a young girl before she aged naturally. She said Miranda should
talk to Anselm about hiring her a servant to take care of the
housework.

Jane stated adamantly she
was all too glad to leave the farm and move to town. Now she had a
much easier life, helping George wait on customers in the
mercantile store.

They had always been
isolated on the farm and worked long hours. Now she enjoyed her
social life and church gatherings in town.

As soon as she could
Miranda would be wise to talk Anselm into buying them a house in
town. He could go to his farm every day from town just as
easy.

Miranda was sure Anselm
wouldn't consent to move to town. She'd have to make do on the farm
with him.

Once Miranda settled into
Anselm's house, she got a taste of what her mother told her. So she
explained to Anselm her mother hadn't groomed her to cook and keep
house. She bluntly stated she was a poor excuse for a
homemaker.