The Treasure Hunt (9 page)

This time Joe felt the warmth rise to the roots of his hair. “I wouldn't even think of stealing.” He paused, trying to grasp it all. “This means there really is gold in Phillips Creek!”

“Don't get excited,” chuckled Willie. “As you can see, there isn't much. I'll never strike a bonanza, like Robert Womack did nearly twenty years ago at Cripple Creek.”

“What's a bonanza?” Joe asked.

“When Womack found a big deposit of gold, they called it a bonanza,” explained Willie. “His strike sure brought the excitement back for a while. Triggered a whole new gold rush, though not as many people came as in the rush
of the fifties. Ah, those were the days. Whole families traveled across the prairies in their covered wagons, all aiming for Pikes Peak and gold. Somebody coined the phrase, ‘Pikes Peak or bust!' That became the catchword of the gold seekers. Big old Pikes Peak was like a huge magnet drawing thousands of people to the West.”

Joe closed his eyes and tried to picture it all—the wagon trains, booming towns, and excitement when somebody struck it rich. “I wish I'd been here in those days,” he said dreamily.

Willie gave him a queer look. “Maybe you wouldn't have liked it. Things were pretty rough. I mean, for God-fearing people…”

Joe barely heard him. He was too busy dreaming about the heyday of the gold rush. “Are you going to be panning for gold today, Mr. Willie?”

The old man shrugged. “I do every day. It's my way of making a living.”

“May I watch you?” Joe asked in the same eager voice.

“Sure. Nothing to see, though. It gets pretty boring.” Willie grunted as he got to his feet. After placing the gold box back in the cupboard, he reached for his hat. “Pan's outside.”

The old man led Joe quite a distance up the creek. “I have to keep trying new spots, you see. Sooner or later I'll need to make a new den farther upstream. That's why I don't want a real house.”

Joe watched as Willie squatted down, expertly scooped up the gravel, and swished it out again. He didn't do it any differently than Joe had. Not really. But there was a certain practiced ease about his movements, the kind that comes from having done it thousands of times.

“Want to try it now?” Willie asked, offering him the pan.

Joe's hands trembled a little at the thought of a seasoned prospector watching him, but when he had finished, Willie said, “Good enough,” and took the pan back.

“What's your father doing today?”

“Uh, I'm not sure. I was supposed to be out hunting for game.” Quickly Joe realized the old prospector was hinting that it was time for him to go. “Thanks for showing me your house,” he said, shouldering his shotgun.

Willie merely nodded. After Joe had gone a few steps, Willie called after him, “Don't let gold ruin your life.”

Joe hesitated.
Now what did the man mean by that? How could gold possibly ruin anyone's life?
As far as Joe could see, finding gold would bring a big improvement for a poor farmer whose crops weren't very good.

He almost went back to ask what Willie meant but decided not to. Joe had a feeling Willie had answered enough questions for one day.

Luckily Joe managed to shoot one squirrel before it was
time to head home for dinner. Father might have wondered why he'd been gone so long if he'd brought home no game.

Joe thought about Willie and asked himself,
Why do I want to keep it a secret about Willie, anyway?
Suddenly he couldn't wait to tell Father all about the elderly prospector. Spotting Father near the barn, he ran up and said breathlessly, “There's a man living in a kind of den in the stream bank.”

Father looked surprised. “In the stream bank, you say?”

“Yes. He's made himself a home underground. I don't know what he'd do if the creek got really high.”

“So where is this?”

Joe told him how far upstream it was and offered to show it to him some day. Right then the thought occurred to Joe,
What if Willie tells Father about my interest in gold panning? What will Father think of that? I guess there's nothing I can do about it now.

“He's an old man,” Joe explained, “and he pans for gold.”

Father's eyes seemed to bore into Joe's face. “I see. So there are still some prospectors around.”

“Not many,” Joe said, matching his strides to Father's as they went in for dinner. “Willie said there aren't many left.”

“Well,” said Father, “I hope this Willie also knows where true riches can be found.”

Once again, Joe wanted to ask his father what he meant by that, but by this time, they had reached the kitchen door, and the aroma of Mother's delicious soup wafted out to greet them.

12

Father Goes Away

I
rrigation,” Ben said moodily. “That's what the sugar beets should have had, but there was none available.” Ben, Barbara, and the children had come to visit one Friday evening in August. Supper was over, and the children were playing outside in the dusk.

Lydia felt sorry for her oldest brother. He looked so dejected sitting there with his elbows propped on the table, and it was no wonder he felt that way. He had so looked forward to raising sugar beets in this warm, sunny climate, but the summer had turned out to be too warm and sunny. The beets were a failure.

Although many of the other crops had failed as well, some of the community's wheat and oat fields had produced enough grain to bring in the threshing machine later in the fall. Most of the grain would be needed as food for the people and livestock, and there would be little left to sell.

“The thing is,” Ben said with more vigor, “I need work to do. I'm thinking of going out to Kansas where the crops are better and I can work on the threshing crew to make some money. We'll need it to get through the winter.” He looked at Father.

“I see,” said Father. He did not sound greatly surprised. “How long would you be gone?”

“I don't know. A month or six weeks, maybe.” Ben looked at his wife. “Barbara's brother Aaron said he could come live at our place while I'm gone.”

Jake spoke up eagerly, “I'd like to go too, Father! I could make some money to help us out.”

Father turned to look at Jake. “I'm not sure that the threshing crews are a good environment for young boys.”

“Aw, the fellows who helped with our threshing in North Dakota were nice,” Jake said.

“Most of those men were Amish. From what I've heard, there's been some drinking among the crews down there. I have an idea. I think I will go myself for a few weeks. That way I can find out what it's like and whether it's okay for you to go, Jake.”

Jake looked a little disappointed, but he said no more.

Meanwhile, Mother said anxiously to Father, “You're not so young anymore. Work on the threshing crew is hard.”

Father smiled at her. “I would try to land one of the easier jobs. Band-cutting maybe. I do feel I need to make some money to support our family through the winter.”

All this time Joe had been fidgeting in his chair. He couldn't help thinking of those little flakes of gold he'd seen in Willie's blue-lined box.
Maybe I can find some flakes like that in my own pan soon! That would solve all the family's problems, and nobody would have to go away for weeks at a time.
But Joe said nothing about all this. He just resolved to work harder than ever at his gold panning.

Two days later Jake hitched up the team to drive Father and Ben to the train station. Lydia stood at the window and watched them go. “I hope we don't have a prairie fire while they're gone,” she said, fretting.

“Father says the conditions are not as dangerous now as they were in the winter,” Mother reassured her. “We must trust in God. Let's not mope because Father's gone. Lydia, do you know what I thought you could do today? We're out of bread.”

“Oh, bake bread,” Lydia said moodily. “I'm not very good at it.” Other times when she'd tried baking bread, it had turned out hard and dry.

“I'll help you if you need it. Your bread wasn't too bad last time. All you need is practice. And if your bread doesn't turn out perfect today, remember that mine doesn't always either, yet I've had nearly forty years of practice.”

“You're not giving me much hope,” Lydia grumbled as she pulled out the big metal mixing bowl and the flour. While mixing the flour with the lard, salt, molasses, and
water, she reminded herself not to forget the yeast. Down to the basement she went to get the sourdough crock.

Such a lovely yeasty smell rose up when she lifted the lid! From this foamy, frothy mixture, she took one cupful and added it to her bread dough. Later, before returning the sourdough crock to the basement, she would have to “feed” it. The secret to making the yeast was to add a little more flour and milk whenever some was taken out. That way the mixture continued to ferment for the next week's batch of bread.

Lydia added the brown flour to her bread dough and then pummeled, turned, and kneaded it until her arms were tired. “Mother, is this good enough now?”

Mother came over and poked a finger into the dough. “Just right I believe. Now, do you remember the next step?”

“Yes. I have to cover the bowl with a cloth and put it in a warm place so the dough can rise.” Draping a clean towel over the bowl, Lydia set it high up on the shelf behind the stove. “Now may I go out and play?”

“Until it's time to help with dinner,” Mother told her. “The bread won't be ready to shape into loaves until after dinner.”

As soon as the dinner dishes were washed, Lydia dusted one end of the table with flour and dumped her big, spongy
mass of bread dough onto the floured surface. “How many loaves, Mother?”

“Six.”

Using the long butcher knife, Lydia cut the dough into six parts. That was fun. Shaping the loaves was the hard part, and she asked, “Mother, will you please show me how to shape the loaves?”

Mother showed Lydia how to flatten the piece of dough and then roll it into a cylinder while tucking in the ends to form a lovely, solid loaf. It looked easy when Mother did it, but somehow Lydia's loaves never looked as nice as Mother's.

“Those are nicer than my loaves often are,” Lisbet said admiringly as Lydia set them in pans and put them up on the shelf to rise again. It gave Lydia a glowing feeling of accomplishment to hear her big sister say that.

Off Lydia went into the garden with Mother to dig some potatoes. Because of the faithful watering, the potatoes had grown well enough. Although some were the size of two chicken's eggs, many were no bigger than one egg.

When that job was finished, it was time to go in and fire up the woodstove for baking. The hardest part of all was getting the oven temperature just right, so Mother showed Lydia how to use small pieces of split wood to make the fire burn extra hot at first and a little less so later.

As gently as if she were carrying a new baby, Lydia brought the round, fluffy loaves to the oven and slid them
in. Oh, how she hoped the loaves would stay nice and round this time, instead of flopping into a heap the way they had last time!