A Fine Start Page 4

  Reverend Biddle seemed to forget that this was only Hannah and Theo’s wedding.

  “Young couples!” he called. “Step up! Let me join you in marriage! Only half the usual fee!”

  Everyone murmured. No one knew what to do.

  Then Dr. Baer spoke up. “Young couples only, you say?”

  “Come one, come all!” cried Reverend Biddle. “Any age couple will do!”

  Then to the astonishment of all, Dr. Baer looked at Miss Peach and said, “This is as good a time as any. What do you say, Miss Peach?”

  And Miss Peach said, “Amen to that.”

  Then the two of them marched to the top of the hill and stood before Reverend Biddle.

  “Make it a fast one,” said Dr. Baer. “We are not getting any younger.”

  In less than a minute, Dr. Baer and Miss Peach were married.

  Later, Dr. Baer told us that he and Miss Peach were planning to marry quietly the next week. But, he said, here was a chance not to be passed up.

  Hannah and Theo will live in the Peaches’ just-built cabin. And Dr. Baer and Miss Peach — I mean, Mrs. Baer — will live in Dr. Baer’s cabin.

  After the ceremony, we feasted on roasted turkey and rolls and butter. And potatoes and carrots and cakes, pies, and apple jellies. We feasted until we could not hold another bite.

  Only Reverend Biddle kept going. He ate and ate long after everyone else had stopped. I began to hope that his buttons really might pop off. I badly wanted one for my charm string to remember him by.

  After the dishes were cleared, Mr. Vanbeek tuned up his fiddle. Hannah and Theo and others their age formed up for a dance. Next came the quadrille. Dr. Baer and the new Mrs. Baer danced this one. So did Mother and Father. After that we all joined in and what a merry time we had.

  We danced and sang until the stars came out. When it was time to go, Mother spread quilts in the wagon bed. Pres, Grace, and I climbed in. We snuggled up all together. We rode home, looking up at the wide prairie sky.

  April 21, 1857

  Mr. Young stopped by our house. He showed us the photographs he took at Hannah and Theo’s wedding. There was one of Hannah, Lily, Grace, and me. I told Mr. Young I thought it was a most beautiful picture.

  Mr. Young had some good news. He is setting up a studio on Indiana Street in Lawrence. He says many wagon trains will be passing through this summer. Travelers want likenesses to send to their families back east. So he expects to make a fine living.

  April 22, 1857

  Miss Wilder says we may no longer bring our charm strings to school. She says we rattle them and disturb everyone.

  April 30, 1857

  On my way to school this morning I saw the first green shoots coming up in our garden! To think such tiny plants will grow to feed us in the fall.

  May 4, 1857

  A letter from Julia arrived. A letter filled with buttons! She says she started a charm string with the buttons I sent. Now all the girls at my old school have them. And they all sent me buttons. Julia told who had sent each one. As I slipped them on to my charm string, I pictured each friend’s face. I feel like the richest person on earth.

  May 5, 1857

  Alice showed us a new game today called “Drop the Handkerchief.” We all stood in a circle. Alice skipped around the outside. She held a handkerchief in her hand. As she skipped she dropped the handkerchief behind India. Then she began to run around the circle. India picked up the handkerchief and ran after Alice, trying to tag her. But Alice made it back to India’s place before she was tagged. Then it was India’s turn to skip around the circle. We had such fun!

  May 7, 1857

  Miss Wilder read us another chapter in Lizzie’s Many Failings. Today, Lizzie spent all her money on a beautiful pin for herself. In this one act, Lizzie committed three Failings. She showed Vanity. And Selfishness. Lizzie also turns out to be a Spendthrift.

  I am growing fond of Lizzie. What will she fail at next?

  May 11, 1857

  A twister is coming! I am so frightened!

  We studied all morning in the schoolroom. The wind was howling. But that is nothing new for Kansas.

  At noon, we stopped for recess. We lined up at the rear door. Adam Cook pushed on the door. The wind caught it and blew it wide open. He tried to run outside. But the wind was so strong it blew him back inside.

  “I saw a twister!” he cried.

  I looked out the door and saw it, too. A huge, dark, funnel-shaped cloud against the sky.

  Miss Wilder was very calm. She told us to go back to our desks. Then she tried to close the door. She managed to step outside. But she could not pull the door shut. Some of the big boys ran to help her. We were all frightened. But we had to laugh when Miss Wilder came back inside. All her hairpins had been blown away! Her hair looked as wild as the wind.

  Miss Wilder told us that in a tornado, a basement is the safest place in the world. Now she is reading to us from Lizzie’s Many Failings. She must shout to be heard above the wind. But I cannot listen. Not even Lizzie can keep me from aching with worry for my family. Mother and Father will take Pres and Grace to the basement of the ready-made house. But what about Aunt Margaret and Uncle Aubert, out there on the prairie? Will they be safe? George’s face is very tight. Alice Bailey is crying. I feel like doing the same. If the twister touches down, it will be awful! Writing in my diary helps to calm me. At least a little.

  Later

  The wind has died down. Miss Wilder has closed the book. She will lead us outside now. What will we find?

  Later still

  We came up the stairs and out to the street. What a surprise to find a blue sky. And the sun shining! Everything was still. There were no people. Bricks and lumber had blown into the streets. Windows had broken. But no houses were knocked down. Thank goodness!

  I hugged Lily. And George. Then they and the other prairie children ran to the barn to get their ponies. They were galloping home before I had run one block.

  On my way home I passed Father! He was going to check on our neighbors. I reached our house and Mother hugged me. I felt her trembling. She is so worried about Aunt Margaret.

  I asked Mother to let me ride to Aunt Margaret’s cabin to make sure that everyone is safe.

  But Mother shook her head. “No, Meg,” she said. “It is too dangerous for you to go.”

  Later

  I am going to Aunt Margaret’s cabin. I have to! Mother does not know how to ride a pony. Father is not here. And I cannot stand not knowing. Neither can Mother. I must go.

  George was forgiven for going to Blue Mound with the flag that time. I hope I will be forgiven, too.

  May 12, 1857

  I was so frightened riding out on the prairie. Nothing looked the way it used to. The wind had blown prairie grass over the path. I could not always tell where I was. Many trees had blown down. I passed the place where the lightning-struck oak had stood. All that was left was a jagged stump. My heart pounded the whole time, knowing how upset Mother would be when she found me gone.

  Sally took me on down the road. At last I caught sight of the little cabin. I let out my breath. It was still there!

  But I was glad too soon. For as I got closer, I saw that the cabin had no roof! And where was the barn?

  “Sugar, Sally!” I said. “Faster!” She picked up her speed. When we got close, I jumped off her back and ran into the cabin. Everything had blown upside down. But there was Aunt Margaret. She was folding quilts. She was as cheery as ever.

  “Meg!” she said, smiling. “We’ve lost our roof. But we are fine.”

  My legs wobbled. I had to sit down right on the floor. I was so relieved to hear it!

  “What about Mollie?” I said. “And her calves? And Kip and Bay?”

  “We all went down to the stream,” Aunt Margaret said. “Aubert tied the animals to trees. We all hunkered down and hoped the wind would not find us. And it did not.” Then she added, “But I have not seen Mouser.”

  Oh, poor little
gray cat. Blown away.

  I told Aunt Margaret that I had to go right back to Mother. That she did not know I had come.

  Aunt Margaret nodded. “Go on,” she said. Then she called after me, “Meg? Tell your mother to get ready for company!”

  Later

  I am forgiven. Mother hugged me tight when I returned. She wept with relief to know her sister and her family are safe.

  May 13, 1857

  I am crying so hard I can hardly write. Will Vanbeek is dead! He was trying to save their horses in the storm. He was struck on the head by a tree branch and killed instantly. Oh, poor Will. Poor Lily!

  Mother has never been on a pony. But I helped her up onto Sally’s back. She rode right to the Vanbeek’s cabin to take food and comfort to Mrs. Vanbeek. I gave Mother my charm string to give to Lily. I want her to have it to let her know her “sister” is thinking of her.

  Losing Will is the saddest news. But there is more that is bad.

  Hannah and Theo went down to their root cellar to wait out the storm. When they came out, they found that their just-built cabin had blown away. They have gone to live with the Baers.

  Alice Bailey’s cabin also blew away. They lost everything. Even her charm string is gone. To think, all those buttons, blowing in the wind.

  May 14, 1857

  We drove to the Vanbeeks’s claim for Will’s burial. The sky was as gray and looked as sad as we all felt, standing in a circle around his grave. I held Lily’s hand while she wept.

  Later

  Aunt Margaret, Uncle Aubert, George, Charlie, and John arrived this evening. And Mouser. The cat had only been hiding. They brought their bedding and moved onto the third floor.

  “Now our house is full to bursting,” said Mother.

  Pres says he would rather have his cousins live upstairs than a whole nest of snakes. Mother says she could not agree more.

  Mollie and her calves and Kip, the ox, and Bay have moved into the barn with Mae and Sally. Now the little barn is full to bursting.

  So much terrible sadness and so much happiness, all in the same day.

  May 15, 1857

  My birthday! It snuck up on me, I have been so busy. To think, I am ten years old.

  On my last birthday, I went for ice cream at the Barnum’s City Hotel in St. Louis. That seems so long ago.

  Mother and Father gave me a gift at breakfast. He bought a likeness from Mr. Young. It is the one from Hannah Peach’s wedding. It shows Hannah, Lily, Grace, and me. Mr. Young titled it “Four Sisters.” It is a treasure.

  Grace gave me a present this year. Two buttons to start a new charm string. She had to promise many times that she did not cut them off anyone’s clothes. She says Minnie Butler next door gave her the buttons.

  Pres did not give me a present I could open. He gave me a poem. It goes like this:

  “Happy birthday to you, Meg.

  I hope you never break your leg,

  Or break your arm or get a blister.

  I love you, Meg, my best big sister.”

  My birthday is off to a fine start.

  Settlers traveled to Kansas Territory in the 1850s by train, covered wagon, or oxcart. Many of them were seeking a place to live where there was no slavery. Some settlers came from free states in the east, where slavery was not allowed. They looked forward to voting in K.T. to make sure it became a free state, too. Other settlers came from southern states where people owned slaves. Many of these settlers had their hearts set on raising their families out from under the shadow of slavery. But no matter where they came from, none of the settlers expected to face the vicious fighting of the border wars, where free-staters and pro-slavery armies clashed. The Civil War did not officially break out until 1861, but in 1856 in Kansas Territory, the fighting had already started.

  Poster advertising Kansas as a free state.

  Voting in Kansas.

  The battle for Kansas.

  Governor John White Geary.

  In the late fall of 1856, when Governor Geary sent the Border Ruffians back to their home states, most of the fighting ended. Peace was declared, and with the coming of spring, Lawrence turned into a “boom town.” Emigrants from the east rushed to Kansas to stake claims of land. Houses sprang up. Wagon trains on their way to California or Oregon often stopped in Lawrence to buy supplies. The Free State Hotel was rebuilt and called the Eldridge Hotel.

  Many K.T. settlers, like Meg’s father, saw the opportunity for opening businesses in Lawrence. Some Native Americans, Shawnee and Delaware, saw the opportunity, too. A few, like Pascal Fish, opened hotels. Others, like Chief Bluejacket, operated ferry services across various rivers.

  Native Americans meet with the U.S. Commission in Kansas.

  Not everyone who came to K.T. was American. Settlers came from Europe, too. In 1857, a group of Germans came. They stayed at the Fish Hotel. When they set up a town of their own nearby, they named it Eudora, after Pascal Fish’s five-year-old daughter.

  Staking a claim of land in Kansas Territory was not an exact science. There were no reliable maps, and few fences. A boundary might be established by counting how many times a wagon wheel rolled over a given distance. By law, anyone who staked a claim was required to build a twelve-by-fourteen-foot cabin on the land. That was the only way he could hold the claim. But before he got around to building a cabin, a settler might “stake” a claim by hammering three wooden stakes into the ground, forming a “tripod.” These stakes, called “straddle-bugs,” were respected as a promise that a cabin would be coming soon.

  Settling Kansas.

  Construction of a cabin.

  Building a cabin was not easy on the Kansas prairie. Trees were scarce. Settlers took turns helping one another raise cabins. Sometimes land speculators looked for ways around the regulations. They might put miniature cabins on the land that measured twelve by fourteen inches! There were other methods of fooling the Land Office officials, too. One was a cabin that truly measured twelve by fourteen feet. But it was built on wheels so it could be pulled from claim to claim by horses or oxen. Kansas Territory was a land of many opportunities. It was the beginning of the “Wild West.”

  The author would like to thank her editors, Beth S. Levine and Lisa Sandell, for their encouragement and inspiration. She would also like to thank Judith M. Sweets of the Douglas County Historical Society, Lawrence, Kansas, whose felicitous research provided the author with so many wonderful voices of the brave and hopeful K.T. settlers, especially the charming thirteen-year-old Maggie Harrington, who kept a journal in 1867.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following:

  Cover Portrait by Glenn Harrington

  Kansas Free Soil poster, North Wind Picture Archives, Albert, Maine.

  Voting in Kansas, Copied from Richardson’s Beyond the Mississippi. Courtesy of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas.

  Battle for Kansas, Lithograph of the Battle of Hickory Point drawn by W. Breyman. Courtesy of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas.

  Governor John White Geary, Getty Images, New York, New York.

  Native Americans with U.S. government officials, from The Illustrated London News. Courtesy of the Watkins Community Museum, print from the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas.

  Settling Kansas, by J. E. Rice of Lawrence, Kansas. Courtesy of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas.

  Building a cabin, Getty Images, New York, New York.

  Kate McMullan says, “I turned ten in 1957, exactly 100 years after Margaret Cora Wells would have turned ten, in 1857. It was such fun to imagine what life might have been like a century before I was born and to write Meg’s story set in that time. It was also fun to name many of the characters in Meg’s diaries after my relatives — my Aunt Grace and Uncle Aubert, my father Lee and his twin brother, Larry, my Uncle Pres, my niece Margaret, my nephews George, Charlie, John, and Stewart, and to imagine them as settlers in K.T. during this exciting time in
American history.”

  Kate McMullan has written more than fifty books for children, including the best-selling If You Were My Bunny and The Story of Harriet Tubman, Conductor on the Underground Railroad. Her recent I STINK! a monologue by a garbage truck, was illustrated by her husband, the noted illustrator Jim McMullan, and was the recipient of a 2002 Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor and was voted one of the Ten Best Illustrated Books of 2002 by The New York Times Book Review. Kate lives with her husband, their daughter, two cats, and a dog in New York City and Sag Harbor, New York.

  Corey’s Underground Railroad Diaries

  by Sharon Dennis Wyeth

  Elizabeth’s Jamestown Colony Diaries

  by Patricia Hermes

  Hope’s Revolutionary War Diaries

  by Kristiana Gregory

  Joshua’s Oregon Trail Diaries

  by Patricia Hermes

  Meg’s Prairie Diaries

  by Kate McMullan

  Virginia’s Civil War Diaries

  by Mary Pope Osborne

  While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Margaret Cora Wells is a fictional character, created by the author, and her diary is a work of fiction.