The Treasure Hunt Page 4

  Lydia thought longingly of the friendly little flickertail squirrels back in North Dakota. Some of them had been like pets to her, and it made her sad to realize that she hadn’t seen a single flickertail here in Colorado.

  7

  Smoke Clouds and Backfires

  For two days the wind kept blowing from the north, and Father kept on trying to plow. One afternoon he appeared at the kitchen door and said in a low, unsteady voice, “There’s a fire. It must have started when the train went through this morning.”

  Lydia jolted to her feet. “Is it coming this way?”

  All three of the girls crowded to the window. Up from the northern horizon rolled clouds of black smoke!

  “Yes, it’s coming this way. The wind’s still from the north. I’m going to start a fire beyond my firebreak and try to burn toward the big fire, but it won’t be easy with such a wind.” Father grabbed the matches and was gone.

  “Can we help?” Polly called after him.

  He stopped on the porch. “Wet some gunnysacks. Use them to beat out the sparks.”

  Polly dashed to the cellar to find sacks. Lydia and Lisbet stared at one another. “I’m sure glad Father’s here!” exclaimed Lisbet.

  “But I wish Mother were here too,” Lydia said in a small voice.

  Armed with the wet sacks, the girls went outside. Their neighbors on both sides were starting fires too, just like Father. Joe and Jake were gone. They were helping dig the cellar for Ben’s new house. Though it was possible to see far across the prairie, Ben’s home was not visible from the Yoders’. Ben lived two miles away. Having first built his barn, Ben had partitioned off a section of it for the family to live in until the house could be built.

  “I hope the fire doesn’t get to Ben’s,” Lydia fretted, thinking of her two little nephews and her tiny niece, six-month-old Hannah. How frightened the children would be if a fire came their way!

  Flames shot up from below the rolling smoke. Beneath the towering smoke clouds, the men looked puny and small as they rushed around to build their backfires. Only God can save us, Lydia thought as she clasped her hands and prayed.

  “This reminds me so much of the prairie fire in North Dakota,” Polly said, staring northward. “But we had better firebreaks that time, and we didn’t try to burn toward the big fire.”

  The backfires struggled and sputtered as if fearful of the monstrous fire advancing upon them. Still, a patch of black grass was spreading outward, extending the protection of the plowed strips.

  Flames shot up from below the rolling smoke.

  The smoke got into Lydia’s eyes, mouth, and nose. She could hardly breathe. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the smoke or because of her fear, which clamped down on her heart like a giant fist.

  “The fire is veering to the west!” Polly called above the crackle of the flames. “Has the wind changed? Or is it all because of the backfires?”

  With all the smoke, it was hard to tell what direction the wind was blowing, but Polly was right. The big fire had changed direction and was now roaring down a stretch of prairie where no buildings lay in its path of destruction. It was far enough away that no sparks flew into the Yoders’ yard.

  Father walked over to the girls. His face was black with soot, and the white streaks on his cheeks showed where the sweat had run down. “Thank God that the wind shifted a bit. I don’t know if our little backfires would have done the trick without that shift.”

  “When will the fire stop, Father?” asked Lydia, her eyes still on the receding flames.

  “Well, there’s another creek between here and town. Hopefully that will do it,” Father answered.

  Lisbet shuddered. “What if the whole town burned?”

  Before anyone could reply, they heard galloping hoofs, and there was Jake, riding wildly up the road. He pulled the horse to a stop beside Father and gasped, “Ben’s barn burned down.”

  “His barn!” Father echoed.

  “But that’s where they live!” exclaimed Polly. “Are the children okay?”

  Jake struggled to calm his breathing. His face was just as black as Father’s. “Nobody’s hurt. The fire didn’t actually touch their property. It was a spark. You know that pile of hay Ben bought from Mr. Morgan? He had stored it outside the barn in a stack, and it caught fire. Then the barn went up in flames. There wasn’t a thing we could do. It happened so fast.”

  “But where were the children and Barbara?” Polly persisted.

  “They did just as Ben told them. They sat on the pile of earth that we dug out of the cellar. The fire didn’t reach them there.”

  Lisbet asked urgently, “Were there any animals in the barn?”

  “No. The horses were in the field,” answered Jake, more calmly now.

  “But their things!” exclaimed Polly. “What about their furniture, their Sunday clothes—everything?”

  “All gone,” Jake said with a sweep of his arm. “Nothing’s left but the clothes on their backs. Some of the lumber for the new house burned too.”

  “Oh, that nice little dress Mother made for Hannah!” Lydia said, thinking of her niece’s new Sunday dress.

  “And the shirts she made for the boys,” Lisbet added.

  “Ben could live with us until we build a house for them,” Father said, deciding on the spot. “I guess I’ll go over there right now.”

  “Can we take the wagon? We want to go too,” Lisbet pleaded.

  “All right.”

  By the time they got to Ben’s, it seemed the whole community had gathered there. Barbara’s parents had already offered to take the family in, and Ben had decided to accept that offer because it was closer to his place. Everybody wanted to give them clothing, blankets, and household goods.

  Poor Ben looked bewildered and put a hand to his blackened forehead. “The thing is we haven’t got a house to put the things in that you want to give.”

  Some of the bystanders chuckled. John Miller spoke up to say, “So we’ll get busy building the house right now. The foundation is ready, isn’t it?”

  The men, looking relieved at having something to do, headed off to the site of the new house. Lydia sat on the pile of earth, her arms around little Noah and Abner. Staring at the smoldering heap of ashes that had once been the barn, she asked the three-year-old, “Was it scary?”

  He nodded his head vigorously up and down, and his blue eyes grew wide. “Scary and smoky! Mother had to cough.”

  Lydia looked over at Barbara, who stood holding the baby while the neighbor women clustered around her. How must her sister-in-law have felt as she watched her belongings going up in smoke?

  Lydia heard Barbara’s voice above the others as she said, “I told myself they’re just things. We’re so thankful our children are safe.”

  And there on the pile of earth, Lydia hugged her nephews just a little tighter.

  8

  Clock of Life

  I don’t know if I can sleep tonight,” said Lisbet on the evening of the fire. “Everything just keeps going through my mind over and over again.”

  “I keep on smelling those flames,” Lydia said with a shudder.

  “Well, if we can’t sleep yet, I know what we could do. We could write Mother a letter and tell her all about it,” Polly suggested.

  “A letter? You mean she’ll be gone long enough that it’s worth mailing a letter to her?” Lydia asked.

  “The doctor said it’ll be over a week,” Polly reminded her. “If we mail the letter tomorrow, it’ll reach her in the hospital the next day. She’d be glad to hear from us, I’m sure.”

  So they began to write. Lydia told how she felt when the fire was advancing straight toward their place and how glad she was when it veered toward the west. Then she explained how Jake came galloping home with the bad news about Ben’s barn. She wrote, “But they’re going to have lots of stuff again because everyone wants to give them something. Even people from town want to give furniture. The storekeeper has given them fabric to make
new clothes, so the women are going to be busy sewing. And the men will build their new house real quick.”

  How true! In just five days’ time, Ben’s house was ready to move into, and the three Yoder girls went over to help them.

  While looking around her furnished house, Barbara said, “Why, I think I have more things now than I had before the fire.”

  Everyone had been so generous. Father had built a kitchen table out of lumber. Five chairs, no matter that none of them matched, appeared out of nowhere. A tiny crib for the baby and a bigger bed for the boys showed up. Someone had given the couple a mattress. Ben and Barbara were sleeping on it on the floor until Ben had time to build a bed frame.

  “And you got a new house quicker this way than you would have if the barn hadn’t burned down,” said Polly, who was putting on her shawl and bonnet to go home. “Lisbet? Lydia, are you ready to go? We have things we should do at home yet tonight.”

  Lydia hurried to get her coat, and soon the three were on their way. A cold wind was blowing as they drove homeward. Far away to the west, the sun was slipping down behind Pikes Peak, touching the snowy slopes with sunset colors. Lydia felt as if she were wrapped in a warm blanket of contentment.

  If only Mother would be in the kitchen to greet them when they got home! Leaving Lisbet to help Father unhitch the team, Lydia and Polly headed for the house. Suddenly Polly stopped and grabbed Lydia’s arm. “There’s smoke coming from our chimney!”

  Lydia took one look at the spiral of smoke and broke into a run, calling, “Mother!” even before she opened the door.

  There she was, sitting close to the stove with a bandage on the side of her head. Her dear face was all rosy from the heat of the fire. Lydia ran into her arms, and Mother held her as if she were just five years old instead of ten. “I missed you, Lydia,” she murmured.

  “And I missed you too! You were gone a long time.”

  “Just a little over a week, but a lot happened to you while I was gone.”

  “How did you get home?” Polly asked.

  “Catherine and I took the train to town and walked to the doctor’s office, which is near the station. The doctor offered to bring us home after he finished seeing his patients. When we got closer to home, we saw that all the grass in the fields is burned, and everything is black.”

  Coming in just then, Lisbet said, “What did you think when you got home and there was nobody here?”

  Mother smiled. “I just figured you were all over at Ben’s place. I got your letter, you know. At first when I read it, I said to Catherine, ‘We have to go home. We can’t stay here when Ben and Barbara have lost all their belongings.’ But Catherine was very firm with me. She insisted I stay in the hospital until I’d recovered enough to leave safely. She assured me that you would all manage without me.”

  “And we did,” said Father, coming inside in time to hear the last part. “But we sure are glad to have you home!”

  “How is your ear, anyway?” Polly asked, busily putting the soup on for supper.

  Mother touched the bandage. “Well, it’s sore from the operation, but it’s not throbbing anymore. The operation took away the pressure that had built up.”

  “Can you hear in that ear?” Lydia asked.

  “I hope so. I can’t tell yet, but the doctor said the operation went well.”

  Father said quietly, “We have much to be thankful for.”

  “So can we go on with our plans to have the wedding on March twelfth?” Polly asked.

  Father and Mother looked at each other. Father said, “I don’t know why not. If you think we’ll be ready, that is.”

  “I think we will, but we’ll be busy,” Polly replied confidently.

  And they were. What with cleaning the house from top to bottom and preparing food for the big meal, the Yoder household whirled with activity. Besides everyone in the community, some guests from Indiana and North Dakota would be invited as well.

  Sam Peachy, meanwhile, was building a small house on his homestead. Jake and Joe, claiming they needed to get out of the women’s way, went to help him nearly every day.

  To everyone’s surprise, a light blanket of snow lay on the ground on the morning of March twelfth. Earlier, it had seemed that spring had arrived. Several hired steam tractors had been chugging around the neighborhood and plowing down the blackened prairie grass. Now suddenly on the wedding morning, winter had returned.

  Of course it didn’t last long. By the time all the guests had arrived and were packed into the Yoder’s house, the sun had melted most of the snow. Lydia listened eagerly as the bishop from Indiana preached. “Life is like a clock,” said the bishop. “The hand goes around from birth to childhood, from youth to marriage, from middle age to old age, and finally to death. Although we do not know when our life’s clock will stop, we know that God is in control.”

  Soon Polly and Sam stood up to be married. How happy they looked as the bishop pronounced the blessing upon their union. Lydia was happy for them too, yet deep inside she felt a little ache. Polly was leaving home. The hand on Polly’s life clock had moved around to marriage.

  9

  The Den in the Stream Bank

  Although he never talked to anyone about it, Joe had not forgotten his dream. He still remembered how Father had reacted when he told him about the gold that had been found in Colorado. Apparently Father wasn’t impressed with the idea of searching for gold. He had declared, “We need to make an honest living from the land, not go off on a treasure hunt.”

  That did not keep Joe from dreaming about finding gold. He reasoned that surely Father would be pleased to have the extra money, so he planned to spend his spare time hunting for gold along the creek without letting anybody know. If he never found gold, no harm would be done. And if he did, well, it was fun to imagine how delighted everyone would be.

  Finding spare time was the biggest problem. During the first few months in Colorado, there simply hadn’t been any! In the beginning there were so many building projects. Then Ben’s barn burned down. Next came the wedding, and then it was seeding time. Working alongside his brother and Father, Joe stayed busy from dawn to dusk.

  At last one day in April, Joe saw his chance. Father had gone to town, and Jake was off helping Ben. A soft chinook wind was blowing down from the Rockies, and off in the distance, the proud shoulders of Pikes Peak butted up into the blue sky.

  Joe glanced around furtively to make sure Lydia and Lisbet weren’t watching before he slipped behind the barn. There beneath some scrap lumber, he had hidden his gold-seeking tools. He’d found the piece of a broken shovel and an old, rusty pan in the town dump. Stuffing both into a gunnysack, he headed for the creek.

  Joe squatted down by the trickling stream. He closed his eyes and did his best to remember the pictures of gold panning in the history book. First the gold seeker would scoop up some water and gravel into the pan. Then he would twirl the pan around, letting the water and the lighter sand swish out over the rim of the pan.

  Gold was heavy. That was the whole idea. The lighter stuff was supposed to float out of the pan with the water, while the heavy gold settled to the bottom and stayed there.

  Round and round went Joe’s pan. When all the water was gone, most of the sand was too. Only a few good sized pebbles remained.

  Joe stared at the pebbles. Some were smooth, and some were jagged. Although they glistened at him from the bottom of the rusty pan, anybody could see that the glistening was only because they were wet and not because they were gold.

  Joe flipped the pebbles far up the bank. One thing was sure, he wasn’t going to swish the same old pebbles through his pan over and over again! He scooped up some more sand, gravel, and water. Swish, swish, swish.

  His thoughts came freely as he worked his pan. No gold. Not that I actually expected to find any. Well, not really. Not today, but maybe someday… It takes a lot of determination. I’ll really have to keep at it—if I want to find gold, that is.

  So Joe f
illed pan after pan after pan. He swished the gravel and water back out again. He stared hard at the pebbles that stayed and never saw any gold. Of course not. What was I expecting?

  After a while Joe grew tired of that spot and decided to move farther up the creek. Maybe the gold hadn’t come down this far. He understood why creeks held gold. The gold, called a mother lode, lay hidden way down deep in the underground. From this mother lode, the gold was washed downstream by the water.

  A startled muskrat peered at Joe with beady eyes, and in a flash, it was gone. Joe grabbed the exposed roots of a cottonwood and swung himself up to the door of the muskrat’s home. He tried to peer into the burrow, but it was as black as midnight. The muskrat would never come back out as long as he was there.

  Down he dropped to the streambed again. Gravel crunched beneath his boots as he trudged on around one bend, then another, and another.

  Suddenly Joe stopped. He saw something on the opposite bank halfway hidden behind scrubby cottonwoods. It looked like a door—a wooden door—built into the overhanging stream bank! This was no muskrat’s lair. Muskrats didn’t have wooden doors.

  Joe made a swift leap across the stream. From the water’s edge, he scampered up the trampled path that led to the door. Joe grabbed the wooden handle.

  Suddenly he froze. What am I doing? I can’t just go barging into someone’s home! Although the door wasn’t very big, it was big enough for a human to squeeze through.

  Grinning sheepishly to himself, Joe knocked on the door. What a funny feeling it was to be rapping on a door that had no house!

  Nothing happened. He knocked again, harder this time. If anybody’s inside, they must be sleeping pretty soundly. Oh well, maybe nobody lives here now. Maybe someone lived here years ago, say in the time of the gold rush.

  Joe’s heart beat fast. He had to see what was on the other side of this door. If a prospector used to live here, maybe he left some useful tools.