Page 54 of The Prospector's Only Prospect
Marigold noticed the men nearby had stopped working to watch and laugh along with them. She waved and offered a weak smile as she gathered up the children for the walk back to the cabin.
She was in the strangest state of melancholy, feeling sensual and aware of everything around her while also insulated from it. There was a slight tenderness in her loins, as if she and Virgil had engaged in congress. She was anxious to see him yet preferred not. She was embarrassed and hating herself while nursing anger toward him and Ben and all men.
She’s not the sort of woman who would instill pious values into my children,she could hear Ben saying under oath. God must have seen it since He chose not to give us any.
Marigold had already been worrying she was barren, and that declaration hadn’t helped.
Now, she did have children in her life and would be heartbroken to lose them. They were demanding, but she was growing to love them—Nettie with her happy, inquisitive chatter, Harley with his cheeky smiles and never-ending cuddles.
And here was Levi, coming up the path as they arrived back at the cabin. He was leaned into the crosspiece of a handcart, pulling the two-wheeled box up the incline, headstrong and determined as his father.
“Are you on your way to Utah? I think you made a wrong turn.” Marigold had occasionally seen trains of Mormons starting out with such carts loaded with their meager belongings, women and children walking along behind. Now that she’d made a good portion of the journey herself in a carriage, she was even more in awe of their will and perseverance.
Levi got the cart as far as the flat stretch of dirt near the cabin and dropped the crosspiece. He fell onto the grass with his tongue hanging out, making Nettie giggle. Harley fell on him to wrestle, making Levi chuckle.
“It didn’t all fit in the wheelbarrow,” Levi said.
“What is it? I thought your father was buying a pair of slates and a fresh tin of saleratus.”
“Pa said it’s for you to make socks for us.”
“That’s a lot of socks.” She glanced at the case of wool. It would make two pairs for each one of them with enough to make a cardigan for Harley and a few scarves. Nettie would enjoy learning to knit those.
Marigold felt down the side of the cart box, looking for extra pairs of needles, and came up with a quilted bonnet wrapped in a gingham apron.
“That’s pretty,” Nettie said, then pointed to ask, “What’s that?”
“A sewing basket.” Marigold lifted out the heavy wicker basket beside the wooden crate. She grunted at the weight.
She knelt in the dirt and set it before her, sensing it had been very valuable to its original owner. The two flaps were decorated in needlepoint vistas of a duck pond and a fancy country house. She spared a moment of prayer for whomever had owned it. Sadly, it was a common enough story for people to die along the trail. She couldn’t imagine another reason it would have been sold, since it would provide a means of income for a widow.
“What’s in it?” Nettie asked, kneeling down beside her.
Harley copied his sister, crouching to ask, “Wa-nin-it?”
Even Levi sat up with curiosity.
“Let’s see.” Marigold was ridiculously excited.
When she opened the flap, she discovered the basket was lined with pale blue silk. There were special pockets containing two pair of scissors, one with long blades for fabric, one with very short blades for nipping threads.
There was a soft leather case full of crochet hooks and embroidery needles and a quilted strip holding two dozen dress pins. A pleated pocket on the inside of one lid was meant to store small projects while they were in process. The other side held a pocket with a measuring tape and a tiny leather case with three silver thimbles nested inside it, each with a different flower decorating its rim.
“Oh!” Nettie said reverently.
“Oh,” Harley copied with big eyes.
“Aren’t they lovely?” Marigold let Nettie try one on her finger. Harley had to try it, too.
Levi inched closer but shook his head when she offered to let him try it on, smirking at the idea, but he continued watching as she explored the rest of the contents.
There were whole spools of thread and ribbons in various colors, full boxes of buttons, snaps, hook-and-eye closures, along with a tin of straight pins. She found three sizes of knitting needles, a swan-shaped pin cushion with a belted band to secure it on her wrist, and in the very bottom, embroidery hoops and precut squares of loosely woven linen for needlepoint.
Did Virgil understand the value in this?
“He really said you should give this to me?” She couldn’t believe it.
“And that we should eat without him. Can we please?” Levi clutched his belly. “I’mso hungry.”
