Maude's Trek

I don’t have much time to move Maude along her life, today. Busy, busy, but then so was Maude. The times were full of jobs to do, just to live. She’d been raised in a civilized city, with good things around her, in a house full of women to help with work, and liven the chores with talk. Now she was headed for a pioneer’s life, on a lonely farm, with even more necessities available only from her work and Dave’s. No close market to purchase from, and little to spare from the budget for it anyway. I saw pictures of her house there. It looked clean and comfortable. Not large, not fancy certainly, it was surrounded by miles of flat land, stretching to the horizon. As I said, lonely.

They brought a lot of furniture with them. Her dining room held three large pieces that she singled out to me, along with the chairs and table leaves. The living room boasted three more, and the guest bedroom, at least four. Add in the dishes, trunks and clothes, sewing machine, tools, and whatever farm items---the wagon must have been very crowded. I don’t know if they came with others, but I suspect they would have to be in a group simply to find the way there. I imagine that trip, with four children, at that slow pace, the nights of exhaustion, the days of dust and heat. And I wonder what looked so promising at the end of that dimming rainbow to keep them going.