The Treasure Hunt Page 3

  Father’s eyes had a faraway look. “Yes, it does.”

  The land agent kept up a steady chatter. He told them about the land, where to buy lumber, seeds, and other things like that. When they finally stepped out of the car, they found themselves standing near a creek that reminded Joe of the creek back home.

  While the men began shoveling the soil to see what it was like, Joe went to explore the creek. He wondered if anybody had ever panned for gold along this creek. Maybe there are pebbles of gold lying down there beneath the rippling water!

  Joe heard a sudden noise, like a twig cracking on the bank above him. He quickly turned to look up and caught a fleeting glimpse of a moving brown object. Was that a rabbit? Or was it a man’s boot disappearing into the underbrush? Joe wasn’t sure.

  Months later he was to recall this moment in vivid detail.

  5

  Moving

  But, Mother, what if Jake and Sam haven’t got our house ready for us when we get there?” Ever since leaving North Dakota, this worry had gnawed at Lydia’s mind and caused her to fret.

  “Oh, the house will be far enough along that we can move into it,” Mother said soothingly. “After all, they started building two months ago.”

  From the seat behind Mother and Lydia, Polly spoke up. “We’ll survive, Lydia. Why, when we arrived in North Dakota in 1894, there were no houses at all! Just prairie! We all had to get to work to build that sod house.”

  “You’re always talking about that,” Lydia grumbled, “but we’re not going to make sod houses. Real, wooden houses take longer to build.”

  “Sod houses are real too,” Polly insisted. “I wouldn’t mind living in one again.”

  “Hmmm,” sniffed Lydia. With that, the girls fell silent, each staring out the train window at the jagged skyline of the Rocky Mountains in the distance. Lydia still felt she needed to pinch herself to make sure this was real. It was January 1910, and the Yoder family was moving—actually moving to Colorado! They had been on the train for several days now. They had seen South Dakota with its Black Hills and badlands. They had trundled through Nebraska and crossed the North Platte and South Platte rivers. They were now in Colorado, and soon, according to Joe, who enjoyed pointing out the sights from his seat behind Polly and Lisbet, they would see Pikes Peak. It was all very exciting.

  Still, that worry about the house gnawed at Lydia. How sorry she had been to leave their snug home in North Dakota. Yes, Sam and Jake had promised they would have a house ready when we arrive, but would they really? What if something has gone wrong? There are so many unknowns when moving to a strange, faraway land!

  Mother seemed to sense how Lydia felt. “Remember the story of the little maid of Israel,” she said softly. “Syrian soldiers broke into her home and stole her from her parents and then carried her hundreds of miles away to be a slave in Naaman’s house. God was with that little girl. He is with us today.”

  Lydia gave Mother a grateful smile. She felt better already.

  Suddenly Joe shouted, “That’s Pikes Peak!”

  Before Lydia’s eyes, the great white peak seemed to rise slowly from the horizon. Mother murmured some verses from Psalms, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.”

  It was evening when the train slowed down and stopped in Wild Horse. “This used to be a busy town,” Joe informed them. “It was built in the days of the gold rush, you see, but it’s become a sort of ghost town now.”

  “Why a ghost town?” Lydia giggled nervously. She didn’t believe in ghosts, of course, but still—

  Joe said, “A ghost town is what they call a place where there are a lot of unoccupied buildings. See those boarded up windows? They’re that way because those stores are not in use anymore.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Lydia, feeling relieved. “What do we do now? Do we get off the train?”

  “You may if you like,” replied Father from his seat beside Joe, “but this train car is being left here for the homesteaders. Not everyone was able to send carpenters ahead to build houses the way we did.”

  “Will Jake be here to fetch us tonight?” asked Joe.

  Father shook his head. “We didn’t let him know exactly when we’d be coming, just that it would be in January. We’ll sleep on the train car again tonight. Tomorrow we’ll get our team out of the livestock car and drive out to our home.”

  “Jake’s home, you mean,” Joe said with a grin. The place was in Jake’s name because he could still get cheap land under the homesteading law. Father was buying a section right next to Jake’s homestead, but the house was being built on Jake’s land. The law said that the homesteader had to live on his land to secure the title.

  So Lydia spent one more night with Lisbet in the upper bunk of the train car.

  In the morning the light coming in the window had a blinding white quality. “Why, there’s snow on the ground!” Lydia exclaimed when she looked out. “So it does snow in Colorado!”

  “Of course it does,” answered Lisbet. “We haven’t moved to Florida or anything.”

  After boiling some eggs for breakfast on the train car’s stove, the Yoders set out across the prairie with Ned and King. They piled the wagon as high as they dared with household goods. The girls squeezed in among the baggage, but Joe decided he would rather walk. At first it was a challenge to keep up with the team, frisky as they were after days on the train, but after a while the horses settled down, and Joe could keep pace.

  Finally they saw a partially finished house in the distance. Several men were climbing about on the roof. “That can’t be ours,” Lydia said. “They are only putting the shingles on the roof, and there are no walls yet.”

  Lydia saw the unfinished house and wondered what would come next.

  Father turned and said slowly, “But that is our place, Lydia. It seems they didn’t make as much progress on the house as they’d hoped.”

  Lydia groaned. “What are we going to do?”

  “It’s okay,” Mother said, assuring her. “Remember that the train car is available for a few more nights if we need it.”

  “Once we’re helping with the house, it’ll be finished in a hurry,” Father declared optimistically. “Who knows? We might even get the siding on today.”

  As the family talked, they noticed that one of the men had scrambled down from the roof and was running to meet them. It was Jake, looking worried and unhappy. “Didn’t you get my letter?” It was the first thing he said to his family.

  “No, we didn’t,” Father answered in surprise.

  “I wrote to tell you that we needed another two weeks to build the house. We had trouble getting the lumber, you see.”

  Father got down from the wagon and began unhitching. “Well, we’re here to help now! Do you have the lumber for the siding?”

  “Yes. It just came yesterday. It’s in that pile over there.” Jake indicated where the siding was stacked with a wave of his hand.

  Father looked around at the girls and Joe. “How many helpers do I have for fastening siding to the walls?”

  Lisbet hopped down from the wagon. Polly, Lydia and Mother followed her lead. “We’ll all help if we can. We have to do something to keep warm,” Mother said cheerfully.

  “As soon as we have one wall closed in, we’ll set up our cookstove. We brought everything that’s needed for a chimney, I think. Then we can warm up by the stove,” Father said as he planned out their day.

  And what a day it was! The girls discovered that they did have some carpenter skills. Everyone pitched in to raise the walls. Lydia didn’t hammer any nails, but she helped carry the lumber and hold the clapboards in place while Father pounded nails.

  At noon the men lugged the heavy cookstove from the wagon and set it up in the kitchen, which had only one wall as yet. Mother built a fire in the stove and warmed some soup, which they ate while huddled around the stove. The wind coming down from Pikes Peak was cold, as if ch
illed by that faraway, icy peak.

  By nightfall most of the clapboards were in place, so the Yoders unloaded their belongings into the house and drove back to town. They were happy to reach the cozy warmth of the train car. As night closed in, the other six families from North Dakota also returned to the train car. Lydia’s friends Veronica and Rebecca Miller said, “We’re going to rent a house here in town until we can build one on our farm. There are plenty of empty houses here in town.”

  “What does your rented house look like?” Lydia questioned, settling into a seat with the other two girls.

  “Oh, it’s old and dusty and cobwebby, and the windows are all boarded up,” Rebecca reported cheerfully.

  Veronica put in, “But we’ve cleaned most of it already, and it was nice and warm after we put up our stove.”

  “My brother Ben is going to rent a house too,” Lydia told them. “I shouldn’t have worried about a house for us since there are so many around that are not being used.”

  “Did you worry? I thought Jake came down here ahead of you to build a house,” Veronica said in surprise.

  Lydia smiled sheepishly. “Yes, I worried they wouldn’t have it done. I guess I’m not a very good pioneer.”

  “Why, our parents went off to North Dakota and had nothing but sod houses,” Rebecca said. “They were real pioneers!”

  As soon as she could, Lydia wrote a letter to Mary and Susanna Swartzentruber, back in North Dakota.

  Dear Mary and Susanna,

  Our house is almost finished, and we are glad because the weather is cold. It is not as cold as North Dakota, though. Right now there is no snow on the ground, but it snowed the first night we were here.

  The name of our nearest town is Wild Horse. I think that is a funny name for a town, don’t you? Maybe someday I will find out why our town has that name.

  The train ride was fun. I liked sleeping in the upper bunk. The swaying was like a ship on the ocean. I hope you get to take a ride on a train too one day.

  Your friend,

  Lydia

  Not long afterward, a letter came from her friends. Mary and Susanna had big news for Lydia.

  Dear Lydia,

  Guess what! We are going to move too! I wish we would come to Colorado, but we are moving to Montana. The name of our nearest town will be Glendive. Do you know where Montana is? It is right beside North Dakota and up by the Canadian border. Montana is the third largest state of the USA. It is really big! There’s lots of room in Montana for you too if you don’t like it in Colorado…

  Lydia stopped reading and stared thoughtfully out the window. She did not want to move away from Colorado because moving was hard work. But she did wish that Mary and Susanna Swartzentruber did not live so far away.

  6

  To the Hospital

  With Colorado’s dry, pleasant weather, the families were able to keep building all winter. The sun shone nearly every day, and the temperature frequently went up to forty degrees at noon.

  The nights, of course, were colder. Chilly winds poked through the cracks of hastily built houses. One morning when Lydia came downstairs to the kitchen, Mother wasn’t there. Polly told her gravely, “Mother has a bad earache, and Father went to get the doctor.”

  “Oh,” said Lydia in alarm. “Is it really bad this time?” Mother had been plagued with earaches for years, especially during the frigid North Dakota winters.

  Polly cracked an egg and let it drop into the sizzling pan. “It must be pretty bad if Father’s getting the doctor.”

  “I had hoped Mother’s earaches would be better here in Colorado since it’s warmer,” Lisbet said as she caught on to the conversation after coming in from the barn with the milk.

  “So did I,” Lydia echoed. She didn’t like to think of Mother lying in the bedroom in pain. “What do you think the doctor will do to her?”

  “I have no idea,” Polly confessed. “There’s a car coming up the road now. Maybe that’s him.”

  Father returned home at the same time as the Ford chugged in the driveway. Dr. Crawford was a short dumpy man. He barely looked at the girls when he entered the house, but went straight to the bedroom with Father. Lydia heard low voices in there. Only a short time later, Dr. Crawford and Father came out of the bedroom and left the house. Out by the car, they talked for a few minutes, and then the doctor drove away.

  Father hurried back inside. “Is breakfast getting cold?” he asked apologetically. “I need just a minute to talk with Mother again, and then I’ll be out for breakfast.” Once more he went into the bedroom.

  By the time he reappeared, the boys had arrived for breakfast too. “Mother says she’ll stay in bed,” Father informed the family as they all took their places at the table.

  Lydia stared at the egg on her plate. Somehow she didn’t feel very hungry knowing Mother was in bed too sick to eat.

  “Dr. Crawford says Mother needs to have an operation on her ear,” Father told them. “If she doesn’t, she might lose her hearing in that ear.”

  “Will she have to go to the hospital?” Polly asked in alarm.

  “Yes. To Denver. Today, if possible,” answered Father.

  “How will she get there?” Jake asked.

  “By train. Dr. Crawford has gone to see a few more patients up the road, and on the way back, he will pick up Mother and take her to the train station,” Father explained.

  “Won’t you go along?” asked Lisbet.

  Father looked troubled. “I would like to, of course, but Mother may need to be gone for a week.” He cleared his throat. “Mother thinks I should stay here with you.” He paused again. “I don’t want to scare anyone, but Gregory Higgins told me yesterday that there’s a big danger of prairie fires these days. The dead grass becomes very dry and brittle when there’s no snow. All it takes is a spark from a passing train. There was a big fire north of here last week. So now you know why Mother wants me to stay. Dr. Crawford will stop at the Millers to see if Catherine can go with Mother to the hospital.”

  Catherine. That was Veronica’s mother. Lydia’s mind was whirling as she tried to take it all in. Mother was going to the hospital. Prairie fires. A multitude of questions tumbled through her mind. “But what should we do if there’s a prairie fire?” she asked tremulously.

  “I am planning to plow a firebreak today,” Father told her kindly.

  Polly spoke up. “I remember the prairie fire we had in North Dakota. The firebreak you plowed saved our house.”

  “But can you plow in winter?” Jake asked.

  “That may be a problem,” Father said, acknowledging his son’s concern. “Even though it’s not terribly cold, the ground is partly frozen. The other thing we can do—if there’s a fire—is to burn toward it. We can start a fire of our own, you know, well away from the buildings, and burn off all the grass so the fire has nothing to feed on.”

  “If that’s necessary, then I’m certainly glad that you will stay here,” Jake said. “I wouldn’t know how to control a fire that’s meant to stop another fire.”

  “I hope it won’t be needed,” said Father. “Oh, here’s the doctor back already. I’ll go help Mother get ready.”

  Lydia slipped over to the window. “Catherine is in the doctor’s car. She certainly got ready on short notice.”

  Soon Mother emerged from the bedroom wearing her bonnet and shawl. How pale and drawn her face looked! And her eyes were glazed with pain. “Well, girls, I know you’ll be okay while I’m gone,” she said, trying to smile. “This will be good practice for you, Polly, to keep house without me.”

  The wedding! In all the excitement, Lydia had forgotten about the wedding. Sam and Polly’s wedding was to be in a month from now. “I hope you get better soon,” Lydia called after Mother.

  The house was a desolate place without Mother. Lydia wandered around, not knowing what to do and wishing she could go to school. The land agent had promised that a school would be started in the neighborhood, but that was not to be until next fall
. In the meantime Grandma Kanagy held some reading and arithmetic classes once a week for the children of the settlers.

  “I wish we had a dog,” Lydia complained. “Then I could at least go out and play with him. Joe’s always busy these days, helping somewhere with the building. He never plays with me anymore.”

  Lisbet said irritably, “I wish you would stop your whining, Lydia! Think of Mother having to travel all that way with an earache. Compared to her, we have nothing to complain about.”

  “Why don’t you go out and see how Father’s getting along with his plowing?” Polly spoke up pleasantly. She was never idle these days. She was always sewing or making rugs or piecing quilts.

  “Well, all right,” Lydia said grumpily. She put on her coat and scarf and went outside. Tiny puffs of clouds were scattered across the blue sky, chased from horizon to horizon by a strong north wind. She could hear Father talking to the horses as she neared him. “Come on, Ned. Giddyap, King.”

  When Father saw Lydia, he stopped the horses and wiped his forehead. “Plowing is not going too well. The plowshare simply does not want to stay in the frozen ground.”

  Lydia stared at the pitiful strip of plowed ground. “Then I hope we don’t have a fire.”

  “Well, I’ll keep on trying to plow.”

  “Would the creek help stop a fire?”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t flow between us and the railroad, which is where the fire would come from.” Father peered toward the north. The railroad was far enough away that they couldn’t see the train, but they often heard the whistle. On days like today, when the wind was from the north, the rumbling and the whistle were loud and clear.

  Father clucked to the horses, and they went on plowing. Lydia wandered over to the creek and down the bank. Only a tiny stream of water trickled over the sandy bed. Lydia knelt for a closer look. Someone’s been poking around in the sand, digging a shallow hole, and throwing up a pile of pebbles. Or maybe it isn’t a someone. Maybe it’s an animal doing this—a muskrat or an otter?